trump is running for a third time. here he is making the announcement from mar-a-lago. >> in order to make america great and glorious again i am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the united states.

>> i know we are, but why does he seem like he's already over it? what a moment. you can really feel the indictment -- i mean the excitement. >> welcome back to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9 a.m.on the west coast. >> look how beautiful it is. >> gorgeous. >> the sun rising up over l.a. where karen bass is going to be the mayor, the first woman mayor. >> very exciting. along with joe, willie, and me, we have the host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the action network, reverend al. >> rev, so karen bass, somebody who obviously a member of the house, going to be mayor of los angeles. >> she is a remarkable woman.

i've known her for years. and she's always been progressive but level headed. and i think that the people in los angeles overlooked caruso. he outspent her probably 10 to 1. he's billionaire. and they looked at someone they felt could do the job. they have very serious problems of homelessness. they have very serious problems in terms of city deliveries and things that they need on the ground in all communities. and i think they wanted somebody they knew would roll up their sleeve and deal with the problems of crime and homelessness as well as the economic challenges. and karen bass has a record of doing that. in congress, she was substantive, in state legislature she was substantive, and she's now the first woman and the first black woman to be elected mayor of los angeles.

good for the people of los angeles. >> as rev said, quality of life was on the ballot, all the issues you laid out and they chose karen bass. over $100 million of his own money spent by rick caruso, who had been a republican, became a democrat. those are presidential campaign numbers. but came up short. >> and as the rev said, caruso outspent the congresswoman and the mayor-elect 10 to 1, 11 to 1, just unbelievable. when i was out in l.a., his ads were running nonstop, and it proves that money often -- and we're learning this more and more -- money often cannot buy you a position in government, cannot -- you can't buy your way into office a lot of times. and here, as the rev said and as willie said, there are a lot of problems right now that los angeles has, a lot of quality of life problems. she's talking about making the

government more efficient. she's talking about the homeless problem, that there's a real homeless problem in l.a. that eric garcetti tried to take a swing at and just the housing problems, just really, really traumatic. so karen bass has her work cut out for her there, but she is certainly focusing on what the voters said they're concerned about. >> as mayors across the country where homelessness and housing is really at a critical level in a number of major big cities. we have a lot to cover this hour. today house speaker nancy pelosi is expected to address her future plans after democrats narrowly lost control of the house. we're going to have new reporting on what the upcoming divided government means for washington and the biden agenda. meanwhile, the republican infighting continues with major

disagreements over what went wrong with the midterms. we'll have more on the simmering feud that's now exploded out into the open. and in just a moment, we will speak with poland's ambassador to the united states after the fog of war in ukraine led to an accidental missile strike, killing two people. let's begin with a number of topmegadonors as they break with donald trump. stephen schwarzman will not back his campaign. he says america does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday. i schwarzman had been a massive supporter of donald trump financially. he's not the only republican megadonor deciding not to

support trump. ken griffin endorsed florida governor ron desantis. in a recent interview, griffin called trump, quote, a three-time loser. and billionaire ron lauder won't help trump finance his campaign either. "the new york times" is reporting other donors are weighing options while a number of former allies are staying on the sidelines, an early sign he may face difficulty winning the support of a republican party still reeling from unexpected midterm losses. the paper notes even his own daughter has declined to get involved this time around, talking about ivanka. the transformation of mr. trump's position in the party over the past week has been striking and his campaign kickoff appears to have done little to silence the criticism. joe, if you believe in following the money in politics, this is big money, saying we're not with trump this time. >> you look at the money and the press coverage. "the new york post" could not

have been more dismissive of the announcement. >> brutal. >> we showed yesterday the line down at the very bottom saying florida man makes an announcement on page 26. you read the article and it gets even worse. >> yeah. >> they talk about a guy who's a golfer, a retired florida guy who's a golfer is running with unknown cholesterol levels. it's about -- >> it's moon. >> -- as dismissive as it could be, then it says by the way, he was also a former president of the united states. you look at fox news, the "wall street journal," the opinion page and things certainly are shifting. you also see, mika, on capitol hill where you have a lot of republicans who used to bend their knee to donald trump who just aren't doing it right now. >> yes. joining us now from capitol hill, nbc news senior national political reporter sahil kapur. his new reporting is entitled "republican infighting escalates

over poor 2022 election results as trump re-emerges." sahil, it seems to me some republican leaders, some are trying to sort of avoid trump, at least say things that seem to reject trumpism but they haven't completely run from him yet. >> reporter: i think that's right, mika. there are some very contentious interparty clashes going on within the republican party at this moment about what went wrong in the 2022 midterm election, about why they underperformed. and trump is kind of up there looming over this entire picture, but obviously he has a huge influence over the party, has been the dominance force over the party for the last seven years. and some republican, albeit quietly for the most part, do blame him. the way to understand the feud is to look at the clash between rick scott, the republican campaign chief in the senate, and mitch mcconnell, the minority leader. they went up against each other in an election for mcconnell's

top job, which he retained, e though it was the most serious challenge mcconnell had faced in his career. rick scott says republicans failed because they weren't bold and resolute enough, didn't do enough to inspire republicans and voters by offering a governing vision. that's why according to rick scott they lost. mitch mcconnell's view is that's a bunch of hogwash, that the reason mitch mcconnell thinks republicans lost is they alienated people in the middle, moderate, independent voters. mcconnell said too many of them viewed republicans out of the party of chaos, the party of negativity, and in his view, that frightened those voters. that's pretty strong language coming from mitch mcconnell. so you have very different diagnoses and very different ideas about how to fix what happened in 2022. there is no consensus at this point, and some republicans i spoke to, including senator bill cassidy of louisiana, suggested that maybe the party should move on from trump, maybe it should not be about one person. john cornyn, a former top deputy

to mitch mcconnell, had this to say. i want to put this up on the screen. what cornyn told me was the constant rhetoric about looking back at the 2020 election was not appealing to voters and said what i hope we learn from this is you can't win the general election because of your base vote. you have to expand the vote beyond that. that is politics 101, but sometimes apparently we forget. so there you are, different vision offense what went on, different theories of why republicans underperformed, no consensus. it will be a party a little in the wilderness for a while even though they have that narrow house majority. >> some republicans breaking with trump. we'll see how long this holds. it feels like we've seen this movie before. stay tuned. talk about democratic leadership, sahil. you'll be covering speaker nancy pelosi, who will not be speaker, as others have called the house for republicans. she will lose her seat in a couple months. but she'll announce her future plans to colleagues. what are we expecting to hear?

>> a decision from speaker pelosi today about her future. this could be a big one. she's served as house leader for about two decades, served as speaker under four presidents going back to george w. bush, barack obama, donald trump, and now joe biden. her party will be in the minority over the next two years, and there's a big looming question about whether she stays on. she of course did get re-elected. she has two more years if she wants it to serve in her current seat. but she did commit to a two-term pledge a couple of terms ago, and it does expire here, so that's one of the things that's raised of question of will she stay, will she go, will there be enough support to keep her in that position if she decides to stay. the top three leaders in the democratic caucus are all in their 80s. there have been calls for generational time for quite some time now and in the views of

time it is time for her and others to step aside and let a new generation of leaders come up. but we don't know her decision yet. she's kept it close to the vest. >> sahil kapur, thank you for your reporting. >> reverend al, you look at nancy pelosi and speaker of the house, historians will look at what she was able to do with a small majority, how she was able to come back time and again, and just how much discipline nancy pelosi has kept in the democratic house caucus there. she certainly is going to be looked upon probably as one of the most effective speakers of the house. >> served twice. >> since sam rayburn. i'm curious. is now the time for nancy pelosi to step down and leave it to somebody else? or is this a time where they need her leadership more than ever? >> i think they need the leadership more than ever. i think that nancy pelosi has shown the ability to deal with

even the extremes in her own party, and yet not become one that plays and patronizes people. i think as he head now into 2024, we do not need any kind of destabilization because clearly with trump back out there, as much as he's been dismissed, he will make a lot of noise. you need sober, mature leadership, and she's provided that. i respect whatever decision she would make, but if i was talking to her, i would say your leadership maybe needed now more than ever. if she does move on, i think we'll have to have the kind of stability to lead the democrats because what we don't need, which we saw in these runoffs, is we don't need people that will try to out-trump trump on the left and not listen to the people on the ground. this morning we are learning more about how to america's top

military leaders view the current state of the ukraine. during a press briefing yesterday, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mark milley offered a scathing review of russia's campaign. >> across the entire front line trace of some 900 or so kilometers, ukrainians have achieved success after success after access. and the russians have failed every single time. they've lost strategically. they've lost operationally. and i repeat, they lost tactically. russia changed their war aims in march and the beginning of april. their war of choice then focused on the seizure of the donbas, the luhansk. that was their operational objectives and they failed there. then they changed again and expanded to seize zaporizhzhia and kherson.

these strategic petroleum reserve -- the strategic reframing of their objectives of the illegal invasion, have all failed, every single one of them. ukraine is a pretty big country. this is not a small piece of turf. and the probability of russia achieving its strategic objectives, of conquering ukraine, of overrunning ukraine, the probability of that happening is close to zero. i suppose theoretically it's possible, maybe, i guess, but i don't see it happening militarily. so i just don't see that happening. meanwhile, the explosion in a polish border town that killed two people is being called unintentional both by poland's president and nato. polish president duda described it as an unfortunate accident saying early indications suggest it was caused by ukraine attempting to defend itself against russian missiles. u.s. secretary of defense lloyd

austin backed up the polish president's assessment. joining us now, the polish ambassador to the united states. thank you very much, mr. ambassador, for joining us this morning. >> thank you very much for having me. >> yeah. if you could just give us the latest on the situation, on what happened in poland, the missile strikes. is poland feeling the full support of nato from the united states especially in its support of ukraine in its war? >> we now know for sure that that attack was not intentional. we were very cautious in our choice of words and very adamant, stressing emphatically, that any attribution of malign spent in this particular case would be premature and counterproductive. again, i would like to say clearly that our support for ukraine, regardless of these circumstances, remains

unaffected. >> mr. ambassador, what are the greatest challenges facing poland right now as we -- as far as we've moved into this war? and you've had so many migrants come across the border. what do the people of poland need from the united states and its nato allies? >> the most important challenge was the one we faced a few years ago after that incident in southeastern poland. in my opinion, it is glaringly obvious that that tragic event would have not occurred had russia not to invaded ukraine in the first place. it's very important for us to stress it very open and clearly. ultimately, it's the kremlin which is responsible for all the atrocities committed on ukrainian soil since the beginning of the aggression.

going back to your point about various challenges poland has been facing over the recent months, i believe that after that incident in poland, it is my conviction, a very firm one, that the polish authorities have behaved very responsibly and maturely in light of these new difficult and unexpected circumstances. there was a string of phone calls between polish and foreign leaders. it was a crash course in crisis management and coordination. and i think that apparently we have all passed that test. and i think that if you ask me about our political and military cooperation with the united states, this bond has never been stronger. >> mr. ambassador, you just said very clearly we know for sure that attack was not intentional. but given your proximity obviously to this war right on your border, what are your

concerns that there could be an incident where russia, whether intentionally or not, does hit poland with a missile either by design or by an errant missile? and what would come from that? >> it's been a very intense experience for all of us since february. our attempt to help our neighbors defend themselves -- and it should be our main priority right now to keep pressure on russia, to keep staving off this aggression, and tooles convince the public opinion in the united states and in europe that the ukrainians are fighting not only for their freedom and for their sovereignty but also for ours. and it is our common obligation to keep helping them fend off that invasion. >> mr. ambassador, i want to underline a couple of things that you've said. first of all, i heard from leaders across the area, across europe how remarkable polish

leaders responded to this crisis, heads down, shoulder to shoulder, in consultation with nato allies. in a time of crisis for a country that has repeatedly been invade and attacked through the throughout their history. that was remarkable. i want you to underline, though, if you will, because we all know the united states and poland, great allies after the wall fell. but there have been some ups and downs, twists and turns in this relationship. let's underline again how remarkably close to the united states and poland are right now and how they've become the absolute closest of allies in this moment of crisis. >> contrary to conventional wisdom, we are not so trigger happy as many in the united states and in europe think. so stressing again that need of cooperation of all our actions. nato has always been about its

trust, credibility, and reliability. and this week we had the opportunity to demonstrate again how credible, reliable, and trustworthy poland is as a nato ally. and again, we don't conceal the truth. we don't disinform. we try to be transparent. unlike our foes. and this is also a very distinct difference between what we do and what russians do in this conflict. >> so important. poland's ambassador to the united states, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. >> my pleasure. thank you so much. coming up on "morning joe" to, we'll have more on karen bass becoming the first woman to lead the city of los angeles in its 241-year history. also ahead, twitter employees have until this afternoon to decide if they want to remain we lon musk's social

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welcome back to "morning joe." 25 past the hour. some more now on u.s. congresswoman karen bass being elected mayor of los angeles. bass defeated rick caruso, a billionaire real estate developer, who was endorsed by elon mus income the race to replace mayor eric garcetti. caruso, a onetime republican,

who became a democrat before the race, spent $100 million on his campaign, outspending bass by 11 to 1. during her campaign, bass said tackling the homeless crisis would be a top priority. she's serving her sixth term in the house. she became the first black woman to serve as speaker of the california state assembly back in 2008. willie? staying in los angeles, dozens of l.a. county sheriff's academy recruits were injured when an suv plowed into the group during a training exercise. 75 recruits were running in formation just before 6:30 a.m. pacific time yesterday when a vehicle veered into them. 25 were injured, 5 critically. the 22-year-old driver was detained at the scene. the los angeles county sheriff telling reporter, "it looks like an accident, a horrific accident." so, elon musk has already laid off about half of twitter's workforce and fired some employees who criticized him, and now, get, this he's telling

those who remain there to get in line with his vision or leave. musk delivered the ultimatum in an early morning email yesterday saying those who choose to leave will receive three months' severance, but for those who choose to stay, quote, this will mean working long hours at high intensity. only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. more than 1 billion young adults may be at risk of hearing loss because of the risk of headphones and attending loud events. they regularly listen to music at noise levels deemed to be unsafe. headphone users frequently listen to music at 105 decibels and noise levels in entertainment venues typically range from 104 to 112 december

-- decibels, both higher than recommended. >> i can tell you, kids, listen to the old man here. >> yeah. >> i've got some raging ringing in my ears right now! >> from headphones. >> well, from headphones, yeah, from music. >> tv. >> sticking my head in cannons. no, but from listening to music, being in bands, having headphones on, mixing all the time. and so, i mean, i go around and see people with ear buds in all the time. >> put it down, guys. >> it literally hurts my ears because you get to the height of something -- i'm going to be okay. >> the food and drug administration -- >> but that is really loud. ah! like a test pilot. >> awful. all of it. so, get this, the fda is giving the green light to meat being grown in a lab. >> come on. >> the whole thing is gross. a california start-up that has

developed lab-grown chicken -- >> what does this mean? >> -- made by culturing animal cells. upside foods can produce meat products without slaughtering live animals. that's good. but the decision means the lab-grown chicken is considered safe to eat, although further approval is needed before the products can be sold in the u.s. >> willie, i'm a little concerned. i'm concerned. >> i like the no slaughter. that's good. >> yeah. >> no slaughter. >> but meat in a lab. i just don't know. >> maybe. >> maybe. who knows? >> you know what, i'm open to it. how about that? i'm willing to try it. but it sounds like the beginning of the sci-fi movie where the animals take over in the lab. >> are they aalive? >> we'll check that out next time in l.a.

and taylor ticket's presale. fans say the ticketmaster presale has been a disaster. they're complaining about hours-long waits, technical problems, and poor customer service. tennessee's a.g. is looking into whether ticketmaster and live nation are violating antitrust laws by monopolizing the sale of tickets. >> by the way, this tour, willie, i guess, is supposed to be one of the biggest tours ever. >> yeah. >> in quite some time as in ever. i think, you know, she had all ten slots in the top ten. >> incredible. >> from her new album. i mean, she just keeps getting more popular. this demand obviously, they couldn't keep up with it. >> she's got so many dates, she's playing three shows at metlife stadium in jersey, so she's doing everything she can

to get as many fans in as possible, but there are a lot of swiftis out there, turns out. >> yes. including willie. >> sure. still ahead, democracy was definitely on the ballot with arizona winning election deniers running in key races. we'll be joined by a democrat who defeated one of them. secretary of state elect for arizona, adrian vontez. and why we're not done yet for election deniers.

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republicans and democrats will have an open door to my office so we can get to work, find bipartisan compromise, and deliver for the people of arizona. but for those of you who prefer to obstruct, spread misinformation, and continue to pursue an extreme agenda out of touch with the state, take note of the results of this election. [ cheers and applause ] >> that was arizona's next

governor, democrat katie hobbs, speaking about her narrow win in last week's election. hobbs' opponent, republican kari lake, has still not conceded her loss. the election-denying former local news anchor and obama supporter has been uncharacteristically quiet in the days since, only sending out a handful of tweets, including one endorsing donald trump's 2024 run for president. she did post a wordless video on social media yesterday, set to the song "i won't back down." that's just weird. arizona's republican candidate for secretary of state was also a 2020 election denier who has still not conceded. joining us now is the democrat who won that race, secretary of state-elect, adrian vontez. good to have you back on the show. congratulations. >> thank you so much. >> what do you make of your

challenger and kari lake not conceding? >> well, the voice that matters here is the voice of the people, the voice of the voters, and, you know, concession is a genteel political art that has done well by democrats and republicans so that the peaceful transfer of power in our civilized government continues. some people choose to participate in that practice, some don't, and that's up to them. >> yeah. >> adrian, you look at arizona, most of the races that we all in the national media have been covering, they're races democrats won. and the national media focusing on races like yours because they were e against election deniers, people who want to enact threat to american democracy. but it's fascinating to look at other races we don't talk about so much from arizona, and it's where you had two people running and no election deniers. well, shock of all shocks, republicans did pretty damn well

in those races in a year that republicans were supposed to sweep. there's a clear message out of arizona, isn't there. >> well, the message is really this, and i'm going to push back a little on the label election denier, we need to call them attorne authoritarians because they don't believe in the consent of the governed. this is an authoritarian movement soundly rejected by democrats and republicans and independents alike, illustrated by the coalition we built in my campaign. so, when you look at the people who really care about american democracy, who care about the function of our government and the regular, again, peaceful transfer of power, there's a lot more of us than there are of them. we need to stop using kid gloves and worrying about their feelings. they're not just election deniers. they are authoritarians. there are still some of them around. we need to be very, very vigilant and continue to protect our democracy. mr. secretary,

congratulations, first of all, on your win. you've never used the kid gloves during the campaign. you called finchem, your opponent, quote, a traitor clown. not worrying about kid gloves with you. but there was as joe said so much focus on arizona and national concern of what could have happened in your race, the governor's race, the senate race as well, and what implications may have been for the vote in the future and democracy in the country. are you heartened by what you've seen not just in your race or your state but across the country where these people who said the 2020 election was rigged for the most part were run out? >> absolutely. look, so many of us across the nation of whatever party have faith in the american public, we have faith in the american people and the american voters. that faith translated into votes. those votes translated into victories for pro democracy candidates across the united states of america. i'm joined by folks like cisco

aguilar in nevada, benson in michigan, and several other secretaries of state who fought back against these folks. many thanks to the people who helped us get here, but the bottom line is the people have spoken. this authoritarian movement in the united states of america, it may be loud, it may be fun to cover for folks like you in the media, but it's dangerous. we have to continue to push back against it with vigor and with the strength of the american public. >> mr. secretary, al sharpton. congratulations to you. president biden talked about this midterm election being about democracy, and you said the authoritarians against those that believe in democracy. for the first time, a real focus nationally was on secretaries of state, on the front line. you had to take the attacks and the hits as some of your colleagues and others did. how important is it now that the

electorate understands you can't take from the top of the ticket? secretaries of state are important, and if we don't deal with them, the top of the ticket won't get elected or at least one that refused to concede as happened in your state and authoritarians with loud noise really drowning out those that want democracy. >> reverend, first, thank you. and second, i see this as an opportunity. i see this as a time and a place for americans to renew their faith and to renew their intellectual curiosity into how government actually works, what roles are played by secretaries of state, by attorneys general, by a lot of these other races that don't get a lot of the coverage by national media. we have to become better citizens across the entire nation, and not that we have to agree on issues, but we've got to understand the structure, we have to understand the fundamental function of our

government better. and i think this fight gives us an opportunity and a motivation to do that. and i hope folks are paying attention, because corner and w still have a lot of battles to fight. >> you were asked if something was fun for the media, i can assure you watching democracy, the balance of free and fair elections and the balance and rise of american fascism, one part of the republican party, nothing fun about that for anybody here. i do want to pick up, though, on what you just said, because i was going to ask you this question and you started moving in that direction talking about the revival of the intellectual curiosity. we're all frustrated. we all have friends that are election deniers who vote for authoritarians as you've said.

mika's seen me do it, walk through the process, one conspiracy theory after another. i've tried to explain to people who have been dear friends my entire life why they have been lied to and misled. i'm curious about what can you do as secretary of state? there's some people you'll never convince. what about those who are the persuadables? what can you do as secretary of state? what do you recommend other secretaries of state do to try to tamp down on this virus and misinformation? >> well, we're already doing it. i've already had several conversations with some of our re-elected and incoming republican members of the arizona state legislature. we've got to be bigger than the problem. we've got to be working together to help people understand that we are all in this together. you know, patriotism sometimes means you have to put your pride

aside, you have to put your par partisanship aside and work together towards common ends. the conversations i've already had have basically looked at this sort of this eisenhower framework, if you will, if, look, if we work on things we have in common together, we're not going to have a heck of a lot of time to fight about things we disagree on. that's the kind of example of leadership that folks like me have to set. we have to reach out and show the american public that this sort of constant pugilism against one another is bad. that cooperation will continue to open up more avenues for conversations, and that's how we as leaders can set the example of how civil society is supposed to work instead of worrying about fear and confrontation and that constant fight. nobody wants that. that's what i'd like to see more people do. >> i love that, focus on the things we agree on. >> very good. >> because there are so many things that so many americans

agree on. >> yes, there are. arizona's democratic secretary of state elect, adrian fontes, thank you very much for being on this morning. despite all the election deniers who ran for governor and secretary of state losing in the midterms, our next guest says the country is not out of the woods yet. joining us, staff writer at "the atlantic," elaine godfrey. we appreciate you coming on. your latest piece is entitled "stop the steal isn't concede," and you write in part, "the thing about trust is that it's pain staingly hard to build and relatively easy to demolish. election denial is now a chronic wound in america's body politic, only partially healed, and ready to reopen red and raw whenever circumstances permit. those circumstances may arise sooner rather than later. donald trump has already broken the tradition of gracious presidential concessions and

peaceful transfers of power. he's encouraged a populist animus towards institutions that will likely remain a litmus test for future republican candidates. nor than anything, trump has created a blueprint for exploiting the messiness and complexity of america's elections, an audience for this type of exploitation is still out there if republicans want to take advantage of it." i think that's the choice for the far-right republicans who may still see the benefits of this type of extremism. >> if they're seeing the benefits, they're not seeing it from the election returns. elaine, it's so interesting what you wright about. edmund burke said that institutions that took a century to be built could be torn down in a day by radicals, and we have to constantly be on guard. whenever i read that quote or think about that quote, i think specifically about what you're

writing about today, that confidence being torn down. how does it get rebuilt? >> that is a great question. i wish i knew the answer. but it is -- it is so disheartening. i mean, i spent a week in arizona over the election just talking to people, like, you know, what will you think if kari lake loses? i asked people over and over. they said i'll think there was trickery, i'll think there was fraud. it's a scale, right. some people think there is some sort of big master plot by democrats to cheat. some people think there are sort of minor areas, tabulation issues that maricopa county had as a reason why lake would lose. there's a blueprint now for thinking about close elections, especially, in terms of fraud. and i think that all we can do is continue to tell the truth. but i think that's great question. how do we fix this? i'm not sure i know the answer.

>> elaine, let me ask you, as we look at -- you talked act those -- what about the candidates that become the deniers? do you find that they are sincere, they're really -- they've drunk the koolaid and feel everything is rigged? or do you feel it's a political strategy by those that want to try to cast doubt to maybe cover up the fact they lost or that they're pushing some kind of extreme ideology that they want to take on power regardless of what the vote is? >> yeah. i think it's mix. i mean, i think i would say most political candidates, especially these major ones that we've talked about, i really think some of them are sincere to some degree. now, i mean, i could be convinced otherwise i guess. they've, you know, been shown the evidence and still don't believe it. i do have a hard time believing

people like kari lake, who is a very smart woman by all accounts and sort of knows how to understand evidence and think critically. i really think that this is opportunism from her, has been opportunism from her. so i think it's a mix. but i think that there are voters -- the voters are what matter here, right. many, many people really believe this stuff, and i think that's really scary. >> it is. it remains frighten. "the atlantic's" elaine godfrey. thanks for being here and come back soon. >> thank you. still ahead, the latest from the harvey weinstein trial taking place in california as the wife of wife of gavin newso delivers graphic and motional testimony. we'll speak to a reporter in the courtroom covering it all. that is next on "morning joe." that is next on "morning joe." with nostalgia. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's one that'll really take you back. it's customized home insurance

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hnchs jennifer newsome defended her communication with harvey weinstein in a very testy cross-examination at the convicted rapist's l.a. trial this week. she is jane doe number four is asked about a series of e-mails and communications she had with weinstein. even after she claimed he violently raped her in 2005. the defense brought up invitations to events and business messages and political donations for her husband

california governor gavin newsome. she described the communications as a requirement when dealing with someone as powerful and as connected as weinstein. the trial in l.a. follows weinstein's conviction and sentencing on rape charges in new york and amid an on going investigation in london. he is charged with rape and sexual assault of multiple women and faces decades in prison on the l.a. charges. elizabeth wagmeister is the chief correspondent at variety and co-host of "the take." she was in the courtroom during the testimony and joins us now. i read a lot of the testimony. i'm wondering, elizabeth, i mean, it just seems like a brutal experience to put this witness through. i don't know how the defense was getting anywhere by torturing her on the stand.

>> it was a pretty brutal experience for everyone in the courtroom to witness this. and, of course, she is not on her own of facing this brutal cross-examination. there are four jane does in this case. there are four extra witnesses who are not charge witnesses but still detailing their allegations against harvey weinstein. and jennifer from the moment she stepped into that courtroom and took her oath, she began crying. it was hard for her to testify. you can be as powerful and successful as one may be. but when you're up there on the stand testifying in front of a jury about your allegations about being raped, that is not going to be easy for anyone. she wassen open the stand for two days as i said cried from the moment she stepped on there. and departed the courtroom quite literally sobbing.

>> it's hard for us to remember now. and the world we lived in since 2017, 2018, harvey weinstein has been pursued. he's been in jail. it's hard to remember while this correspondence took place in 2004, 2005, weinstein was the king of hollywood. and as she said on the stand, this was the most powerful guy in my world. this was the most powerful guy in hollywood. of course, i continued corresponding with him. i had no choice. right? >> that's right. and the prosecution has really done their job on explaining this, not just with jennifer newsome but with all of the witnesses. they're show indicatesing that the harvey weinstein sitting in the courtroom right now is not the same harvey weinstein that was in the time that these women were alleging they were attacked

by him. harvey weinstein was quite literally the king maker of hollywood. and jennifer newsome when she alleges she was assaulted in 2005, she had not yet met gavin newsome. she had success on her own in the entertainment business. she described herself still as an up and coming actor and filmmaker. now she is an emmy award winning filmmaker. so this is a pattern that we're seeing not just with the women who are in this trial but many of the women who have accused weinstein. we know there are over 100 women that accused him, only a small number of those will ever make night a courtroom. but they are all expressing this imbalance of power. they knew harvey weinstein could make them or break. they they were worried about being blacklisted. they felt the need to communicate with him just to keep that relationship cordial. >> and elizabeth, it seems to me that the witness did not try to use her own connections and

political clout of her husband to not have to testify and go through this painful and humiliating experience. >> that's correct. she actually said that the only reason that she originally came forward and spoke to authorities was to help other women. she said she never thought that first day when she spoke to detectives she would end up being on the stand testifying. it was clear she didn't want to be there. i think you bring up an excellent point. not only did she not use the connections to get out of testifying, but she also didn't use them on the stand. what was interesting is that the prosecution never once mentioned her husband's name. on the flip side, from the moment that the defense stepped up there, they could not say his name enough. this was a clear strategy on both ends. one of them who is just trying to focus on the woman on the stand, not showing the jury who she is today and then the

defense you have them making it abundantly clear that this woman is very powerful today. >> wow. chief correspondent at "variety," thank you very much for that update. really stunning development in that trial. >> all right. that does it for us this morning. thank you for joining us. we'll see you tomorrow morning. jose diaz picks up the coverage right now. >> good morning. 10:00 a.m. eastern. we're keeping a close eye on the house floor. we wait for an important announcement from nancy pelosi. her spokesperson tells nbc news she will reveal her future plans during a speech on the house floor some time today. and there you see it beginning opening of congress today. a source tells nbc news pelosi took home two versions of the speech she plans to deliver some time today. >> the house