>> you know, even republican lawmakers and aides privately tell axios they're unsure if kevin mccarthy has the votes to be speaker. he's trying to, similar to our discussion with ronna mcdaniel, appease different factions of the house republican caucus. those more conservative meshes vocally apposed to him, more trumpy in nature, and those who want to see a different way forward. he, of course, is talking to someone like congresswoman marjorie taylor greene, asking for committee assignments and different concessions from him as are other members. he's going to have to make a lot of people happy, and that's certainly not easy to do. >> yeah. we'll be watching that in the days ahead. alexi mackanin, thank you, as always. and thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. it wasn't just trump. he had dozens of enablers a lot still in congress. people hoop tried to overthrow the government in the government

right now, and i continue to be blown away by how dumb they are. even scooby-doo villains know not to write it down. >> ah -- >> and they did write it down. they did. this morning, seeing more text messages from sitting members of congress aimed at overturning the 2020 election. we'll have new reporting on the attempted coup and the coverup. plus new polling shows republicans are, republican voters are fed up with donald trump. maybe not republicans, but republican voters. >> that's not even -- hold on. okay. willie, hold on a second. >> let's write it down, because they write it down. we should write it down. >> desantis at 56%. donald trump's at 33%. >> could the math. >> subject 33 from 56, that's like 87 points, willie, donald trump getting -- donald trump getting crushed by 10 3 points

right now. >> and ron desantis just governor of florida saying look at me, look at me. >> trying to own the libs. willie, that's pretty massive. >> a staggering number. really is. a recent trend just in the last couple weeks. donald trump a firm grip on the party, maybe still does. now you're seeing more people who don't want him to run for president than do in the party, and that head-to-head matchup, will certainly change dynamics of the way republicans are thinking. if there is an alternative with aspects of trumpism without being donald trump, there he is apparently. ron desantis. >> wow! >> whew. >> shocked by those numbers. they are breathtaking. >> okay. moving on as tesla's stock -- >> trump, okay -- trump. >> narrow down on trump. who do we have next? >> tesla stock drops amid takeover of twitter.

found himself dethroned as the world's richest person. >> okay, so he's still like -- so he's the world's second richest person. really? that's nothing -- nothing to sneeze at. that said, i was reading, i think it was on cnbc, our sister company here in comcast, reminder to children all over the world, comcast stream up and running. maybe flashing lights. beware of that. but, willie, tesla stock has dropped, but, by, like 25% to 3% since elon took over twitter. again, i wonder what the thomas edison of our time is doing, like, like rummages around in the sewer? like -- on this social media app that we could all do without. why -- why is he doing this? why is he blowing up his other companies, too? >> it is confounding and he's

gone so far into sort of trolldom on twitter talking about prosecuting anthony fauci, doing all the things he thinks a certain audience wants to hear, maybe trying to bring them back on to twitter but at what cost? talking to steve radner in a minute who understands this better than most and look at what damage elon musk has done and is there a strategy here? he is, as you say a brilliant, smart guy. issome 3d chess at work or just blowing it all buying twitter and becoming a troll? >> that's the thing. willie, fascinating. talk about this. look, the trolling doesn't work. it doesn't work for donald trump. it didn't work for us. it didn't work for that guy in arizona that looked like he was -- like -- a robot, that lost the senate race. it just -- it's not working. like, republicans keep losing elections. the trollers keep losing, and you take this over to elon,

again. you know, work on, like, the morris project. work on things that help mankind. again, i don't -- somebody needs to get to him and say, hey, this trolling thing that we all, like, have been worried about? all it does is, it makes the troller the loser. >> yeah. >> yeah. i mean, seen that again and again and again, and i think the answer to your question is that probably nobody at this point who can get to elon musk. when you reach that point in your life, donald trump is similar. you have people around you who tell you, you are a genius and affirm the thing you're doing is smart and good, paying perhaps three maybe four times for twitter what it was worth and now spending most of his time, it appears, just objectively tweeting and responding to random people on the website he bought. >> you remember that house judiciary, the thing? what was it? trump, elon, kanye? like, who knew at the time?

>> yeah. >> it was a hex. >> it was a hex. >> it's a hex! they loaded down, and all three of those guys after they wrote it down, like -- they're losing money. trump -- i mean, the bottom's falling out for all of we'll be this. joe, willie and me we have the host of "way too early" white house bureau chief at politico jonathan lemire. and member of the "new york times" editorial board mara gay and -- >> like a rocketship, straight up. >> text messages never seen publicly. providing new insight into just how deeply the trump white house engaged with debunked election conspiracy theories following the 2020 vote. the 2,319 texts are from the phone of former white house chief of staff mark meadows. they were recently obtained by

talking points memo after being turned over to the house january 6th committee earlier this year. the latest batch of released messages shows multiple republican lawmakers offering to cooperate with plans to keep trump in office. seemingly in exchange -- ah -- for partner requests. >> that's not good. >> one such message came from north carolina's newly elected senator ted budd, a congman at the time. the man asked to be pardoned may possible will hayes found guilty of bribery and fraud charges in 2020 but pardoned by trump shortly after this text was september. another message, raffensperger to find the exact number needed to reverse joe biden's 2020 win in the state. >> so, look, all i want to do is this. i just want to find -- ah --

11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state, and flipping the state is a great test nont our country. the people of georgia are angry. the people of the country are angry, and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated, because -- 2,236 in absentee ballots, they're all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, et cetera, and even if you cut them in half, cut them in half and cut them in half again, it's more votes than we need! >> well, mr. president, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. [ laughter ] >> ooh! that call never -- you know -- >> it's old. >> willie, the thing is. >> -- in a bad way.

>> we all grew up and we'd see reruns of "perry mason." someone breaks down on the bench. >> "the sopranos". >> and there would be the smoking gun. there's always a smoking gun. the first thing every law professor taught you was, this ain't "perry mason." there's never a smoking gun. you got to piece your case together. the depositions, the interrogatories, piece by piece, bit by business and over time if you work hard enough -- you'll get the theory of the case, and you'll prevail in court. this is straight out of "perry mason." like, donald trump is, i want you to steal this election for me. get this many votes. it's really shocking! there's no way that -- i believe -- that -- that -- that -- i want to be careful what i say here. >> uh-huh. >> let me just say, you

certainly seem to have a prima facie case in the state of georgia to indict donald trump. it's -- it's just shocking. >> well, we know that jack smith the special counsel is talking to brad raffensperger. going to talk to raffensperger and indication that's where the justice department is looking. exactly what you're talking about there. right. if this were "perry mason." would the writers take a week off? can't just have the guy say it on the phone and there he did and reported in roffensberger, recorded the phone call because he suspected donald trump would the do something like. and floating a plan to meadows making it seem as if trump didn't actually want raffensperger to find the votes. this is actually how they would explain this. instead trump trying to tramp raffensperger to see if he could be trusted. if the phone conversation was leaked, theory went, would raise the question, "if raffensperger

can't be trusted on a phone call, how can he be trusted with georgia's elections? get this now. >> wow. >> meadows replayed, he loved that idea. so we'll explain it away by saying it was all a part of our plan to trap raffensperger to see if he can be trusted. another exchange meadows agreeing to meet with georgia republican rick allen after the congressman tells him he has a "source" that can prove there was election fraud. allen later tells meadows that his source is actually "a source that is feeding his source." then he sends meadow as conspiracy theory about romanians and ukrainians stealing identities of u.s. citizens for the purpose of rigging the 2020 election for democrats. not making this stuff up. we will note some of these conversations appear to be in complete and maybe missing context. nbc news reached out to those involved for a response as, joe, some of the texts we talked about yesterday including our

running joke, yours and mine, about the italian dude with the satellite. that conspiracy theory taken very seriously by mark meadows passed on to president trump who then went to the justice department says look into the italian dude with the satellite who used the satellite to change votes from trump to biden. >> yeah. yes. speaking of running jokes. remember back in 1947 you and i come back from the war and what do we do? >> sure. >> we -- we -- we saw patton. he needed a little more oil to get into germany. what did we say? what if we created something called cold fusion? right? working on it since '47. looks like they finally, finally listened to us. it looks like the government did. so now this cold fusion -- i hope that we get at least some recognition. i don't need to get rich off the cold fusion. you and i, working on this for what? 70, 80 years? like we need some ed considerate for this. >> never do the nobel committee

overlooks us every single year but we know what happened. i think that's enough for us. >> all right. so, willie, as we bounce around like a ping-pong ball. >> this is incredible. >> in a marble cage. i don't know what that means. 1980, reading something from the google machine from december 10, 1980. because as you were talking meta, maybe we can just say that they were doing an investigation of our own on raffensperger? i said, wait. this sounds a lot like that florida congressman in abscam cot shoving cash into his pockets couldn't get it all in, asked later oh, i was conducting my own investigation. listen to this. from december 10, 1980 "washington post," representative richard kelly took $25,000 from fbi agents

posing at representatives of arab-rich investors investigating his own suspicions infiltrating by persons that could destroy his political career federal court told yesterday. tooks $25,000 in 1974 to "seek out the truth on his own." and, you know, jonathan lemire, past is prologue. nobody bought that in the 1970s during abscam, nobody's going to buy this now. i think the shocking thing is, i know mark meadows, known him for quite some time. sat and talked to him when he was still a member of congress. i tried to provide him guidance every time you talked to him seems like he's listening, but then you talk to others who are telling you the exact opposite, and he seems like he's listening there. the lack of judgment shown by mark meadows on the incoming is absolutely shocking. i had staff members in their 20s

and early 30s which i first got to congress, they would have cut anything off approaching any imp propriety like this in a second. it's shocking what these reveal about mark meadows. >> yeah. i'm still blown away by this idea for a cover story that donald trump was trying to ensnare brad raffensperger. test his loyalty. double agent donald trump going undercover as if reffensbergor was a public official or not. meant to keep things away from the president that are damaging or conspiratorial, and only put to the president things that matter. could advance his agenda for the american people. that's not at all what mark meadows is doing a conduit taking crazy theories into the white house and places them on donald trump's resolute desk.

no keeper whatsoever and texts revealed over the past couple of days show not uncommon for him to speak to congressman, but up to his neck in these conspiracy theories willing to play ball with outlandish potentially even criminal claims. these texts seem to be on a silver platter for any number of the investigations currently under way against donald trump. >> talking about overthrowing an election. they're talking about overthrowing an incoming president of the united states. so, yes. there's some criminal like the you have through these techs, texts. step aside here willie. this is absolutely incredible and we see these members of congress being encouraged by mark meadows to continue their attempts to overthrow a democratic election, but let's remember. he was doing the same thing to

ginni thomas. >> yes. damning to mark meadows, so much damning and mara, think back to january 6th committee, testimony heard about the way mark meadows behaved january 6th. people came to him said you've got to do something. the president has to make the statement he said, i don't want to cross the big guy. extraordinary cowardice and the seeing it again in these text messages. easy to laugh about these theories about the satellite, romanians and that stuff expect the fact made it all the way to the oval office are and donald trump went to the justice department said look into all of this stuff. this is an attempted coup, it is an attempted coup. in some ways mark meadow was kind of acting, well, treating democracy like a mob boss, or like the aide to a mob boss. right? handing his candy around for those who would play his game,

and toe the company line. my personal favorite when rick allen, you know, asks for a pardon for a friend and says end of his text, and merry christmas. you know, the casualness with which these people thought that they would not get caught. we know that, and they still, these texts are kind of out there to these prosecutors just as joe said, you know, daring them to be held accountable. i think it shows you that if they aren't held accountable, we have a real problem on our hands. if this comes out and nothing happens to these individuals, and they are allowed to continue to do, quote/unquote, the people's work so far as any of them are capable of it we'll have a real problem here. you do have to laugh, because it's just dark times and you have to kind of find some way to cope with it. i just watched "home alone" a classic. this is, like -- "home alone" villain, harry and marv level.

you know? ridiculousness. >> yeah. insulted joe pesci, by the way. >> true. my apologies mr. pesci, but they have to be held accountable. please, something hold them accountable. >> the same group of people, many sitting united states congressmen just re-elected pledged on the first day of the new session because they have power in the house, they're going to read from start to finish the constitution to get back to our constitutional foundations in a way, they say, we've lost ourselves under the biden administration. look at the text messages. ask yourself if these are the people who uphold the constitution. >> well, really, and, again, it's unbelievable. i go back to us talking about people that ran my congressional office. i had a young office when i went in there. rachel, who was 25 at the time. >> you were young. >> chief of staff. i was 31. bart was in there. he was 31. dave, david was, like, 28, 29. james -- i mean, they were all

young, but inside that office, every single one of them, because i was in washington, what about? you can't do that. why can't i do that? because this. there actually were guard rails from day one, and i knew that when two or three of them said no, we're not going that direction. i'd sit, we'd talk. we'd debate. we understood, and then -- and here, what they're doing is so beyond the pale, not only of anything that i saw in my office. nothing -- nothing ever approached this through seven years, but in any office of any people that i knew. >> right. >> this is so out of control. >> it's shattering norms. >> it does shatter norms. i've got to say, yes. we are laughing. we are laughing at, at what

clauds these people are as far as legally. they're just legally just plotting their way through, in a way, i mean, to indictments. some of these are indictments. just like there was laughter at abscam with them shoving the money in their pockets, they would be that stupid to think they could get away with it. well, yeah. we laughed at their stupidity. they also ended up being indicted, also got sent to jail. and, again, how -- i just say, i said this on january the 7th. on january the 7th. how -- does -- donald trump -- not get indicted for conspiracy to commit sedition? if you read -- if you read the statute, if you read other

statutes about getting in the way of public business, that's to be done -- he's guilty. he's guilty if you just look at it. of course, in america, everybody is innocent until proven guilty, but no man is above the law. >> no man's above the law. you look, though, at these statutes. and it was obvious the day after. and we just keep getting more and more and more evidence that's stacking up on top of -- i think republicans are starting to understand that, and that may be, mika, why you're starting to see so many republicans break away from trump. not because of, you know, they were concerned. >> right. >> for any moral reason. please. these are people who were fighting and screaming and scratching and clawing and voting and supporting this guy,

and in 2020, two weeks after he was pressuring his attorney general to arrest his political opponent, who was ahead of him in the polls and the family. so it doesn't have anything to do with that. maybe they understand, though, al of these crimes are going to add up to making him unelectable in 2024. >> and to mara's point. these text messages, which are so revealing that they have a blase quality to them. merry christmas! these conversations have been going on for a long time, in different ways. to your point, joe, new polling shows support for donald trump's 2024 presidential bid is trending downward. a poll had him at 60% among republicans in july. the number dipped to 56% in october. and is now at just 47%. while 31% of republicans want trump to win, 61% say they prefer another nominee who would

continue the policies trump first pursued. the overwhelming choice is florida governor ron desantis. >> amazing. >> he leads trump by double digits. 56% to 33%. desantis also outperforms trump against joe biden in hypothetical matchups. desantis leads biden by 4 points by trump trails biden by 7. >> and look at those numbers. let's keep that up right now, and jonathan lemire, at the end of the day, this is the calculation that republicans are making. not -- not that, that, that they're shocked and stunned that he is an immoral guy who's committed a lot of crimes. but just, he can't beat joe biden. he keeps losing elections for republicans. elections for republicans. i think they finally understand that. >> yeah. we can tick through the disastrous launch that trump has had since he launched, since he

began a 2024 campaign. dinner with the white supremacist says he's terminate the constitution. all of that. what matters, how poorly republicans did in midterms. that's what the gop is grappling with right now. they should have had that red wave, with historical trends and economic data. inflation. should have done far better than they did and they didn't, large pargh, saddled with donald trump hand-picked candidates who were disastrous in the senate, and that's, that is what they're thinking about right now. now, look, we shouldn't draw conclusions. we don't know that this is a done deal. trump looked weakened before and somehow rallied back, but this is his lowest moment since the moment of january 7th to be sure. republicans came back then. a lot of people i talked to say they're less certain they're going to come back now. not just trump's had a bad campaign so far. trump's vanished. where has he gone? the republicans are asking, why is he not out there?

doing rallies? trying to change the narrative? he's not doing anything and, yes, desantis is a blank canvas to republicans, they can project what they want to see on him. he'll be vetted and tested in months ahead. polls show us good for desantis. more about a problem for trump and so many republicans feeling he can't win again considering breaking away. >> and ron desantis doing nothing to indicate whether he would run for president. going about his job at governor of florida, but republicans as jon said excited about what he did in his election back in december. governor desantis launching a new battle against covid-19 vaccines in his state. >> i'm announcing a petition with the supreme court of florida to impanel a state-wide grand jury to investigate any and all wrongdoing in florida with respect to covid-19 vaccine. >> governor desantis did not

specify what wrongdoing the panel would investigate but suggested it would search for evidence to bolster claims about harmful side effects. joining us now, nbc news senior national political reporter mark caputo. we'll let you talk broadly about this idea of ron desantis taking on donald trump, but specifically this action about vaccines. what's he up to here? >> reporter: well, that's a good question. what desantis is definitely up to is that kind of a political brand built in 2020 questioning expert opinion about covid, covid-19, response to covid. opening schools, opening the state up. fighting vaccine mandates. what's happened over the years is, desantis has gone from this full-throated supporter of covid-19 vaccines. toured the state. told people to get them. called them life-saving. and then just kind of slowly morphed as a portion of the republican party, became anti-vax, which it came to the covid-19 vaccine and now we're

here, and when he made this announcement, it landed in trump world as in the words of one adviser, a shot across the bow. one thing that donald trump and ron desantis definitely disagree on now, and that's the effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccine. something that donald trump liked to brag about. the development of these things in operation warp speed under him as president. what happened last year, about a year ago, an event in dallas. trump talked, hey, have you gotten your booster? they're good. an event with bill o'reilly, got booeded. according to people we've spoken to, spoke to donald trump, surprised him made him think a portion of the republican base that's anti-vax. that space now appears to be being filled with ron desantis, and it's being viewed as a threat by trump supporters, trump backers, trump advisers, trump world more broadly. >> you know, what's so funny about this, mark. again, it's all gesturing.

it's all ron desantis playing the shock opera. he wants to shock democrats. he wants to shock the media. he wants people to scream and yell. you look at his history, though. we're starting to see a trend. right? he goes after disney. he attacks the magic kingdom. he attacks mickey mouse. i'm taking away their tax, blah, blah, blah. the election's over. suddenly we hear maybe disney's not going to get touched after all. same with this election crime unit he runs around, we see video of a lot of black floridians arrested. you get to the end of it after the election, you find there's really not a whole lot there, other than ron desantis wanting to grab headlines. you can say the same things about him lining the migrants, getting them on a plane, flying them to martha's vineyard. all gestures, all shock opera.

no follow-through. and now here sounding like an anti-vaxxer from san francisco. sounding like some left-wing anti-vaxxer from, you know, 1998. but he knows the stats. he knows all of the stats don't back this up. he knows there will be nothing that comes out of this investigation. just more gesturing. huh? >> well, i'll be interested to see. what's interesting about the timing is the day he made this announcement there was a study released saying that the covid-19 vaccine had saved 3.2 million american lives. now, desantis' tenure at governor and management of covid has been pretty controversial, because at a certain point the state opened and almost combined with the delta wave, really affected the state. hasn't affected him thus far.

just won election. used to be a swing state. difficult to get an answer from the administration exactly what sort of lying the pharmaceutical companies allegedly did. what criminal exposure they have, because during his announcement he sort of compared this to the opioid manufacturers, and that's a pretty different sort of matter. >> wow. >> right? >> willie, just absolutely insane. by the way, willie, if you look at the states that had the most deaths per capita, you know, a lot of states that are deep, deep red at the top of the list, where anti-vax sentiment runs as high as it used to run among hippies on the west coast. mississippi, oklahoma, alabama, west virginia. arkansas, tennessee -- you've got new jersey in there. louisiana, kentucky, georgia and, yes, and then you keep

going, and there's florida at number 12, i believe. states like california, down at 40, and so, again, he understands. i mean, he maybe, trying to run at the guy that go covid. right? look at numbers. he didn't get covid right. he -- he just didn't. and -- and the same thing, again, with the vaccines. this is -- this is what you and i deal with every day with our friends. and the conspiracy theories, and people sending around facebook posts and people getting information from chinese religious cults, and people getting information from plandemic. like, you know -- i'm not shocked. i'm not stunned. i'm not playing into the shock opera. i'm just saying, here's another example, just like disney, where ron desantis is going to prove

at the end that he's all hat, no cattle, and it's all a big, fat, phony gesture. >> we will see. as jon said. he's a blank canvas right now. people will fill in the blanks on ron desantis, as his profile continues to rise racing a question about the polls just showed. kind of eye-popping number the at this point and the former president of the united states already announced his run trailing ron desantis by 23 points. in this poll, anyway. obviously a big hypothetical. no idea if desantis is going to run, but talking to people around florida. talking to people around governor desantis, when they see a number like this, what does it tell them? >> well what it tells them is, kind of what you guys said before. it is, donald trump since his announcement, which really hasn't gone as smoothly as anyone would have wanted in trump world, his numbers continued to erode here in the suffolk university poll you referenced, the pollster said

that his numbers actually cratered, which is apparently true. but the main problem that donald trump has right now is, he wanted to get in early. he really thought there would go a big midterm election wave for republicans. he committed to an announcement right after the election. didn't go republicans' way, and since then just sort of floundering. desantis has had the luxury of both, has the luxury, of both time and money. his poll numbers continue to either increase or donald trump's continue to decrease, in theoretic's matchups and desantis had at least 63 million dollars in the bank after the election. what he's done since then is he's kind of steadily taken on these issues which get people talking, get the right ring riled up, the left wing very mad. he's also done a good job of avoiding things that he doesn't want to talk about. right now you wouldn't know it. in tallahassee there's a special session of the legislature to

address a looming financial crisis with millions of florida homeowners. and that's property insurance. and the legislature looks right now in order to address the issue of skyrocketing property insurance rates to pass a quote/unquote reform that's going to limit people's rights to sue, and might raise rates for people and not guarantee any lower rates. what's ron desantis wind up doing? winds up talking about covid-19 vaccines. not property insurance. >> just trying to distract. it's the shock opera and you're all invited to be outraged. mark caputo, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. great reporting, as always. so mara, always important. the election, what, a month ago, it's all a blur, it's all a blur, but it's important to look back at the results of that election, in you're a republican, if you want to win in 2024. election night was really a tale

of two republican parties. you had ron desantis' republican party, which ran up record margins in the state of florida. he just -- it wasn't just ron desantis winning big, but he swept in county commission candidates that had no -- no -- idea that they were going to win. like, up and down the ballot. it was massive. then you get outside of florida. a nightmare for senate republican candidates. a nightmare for kevin mccarthy, who says last year he was going to win by 60 -- they're going to pick up 60 seats. now mccarthy's even fighting for his political life, because they, they so badly underperformed. so if you're a republican, it's a pretty simple choice. isn't it? >> yeah. it's clear that, that the trump brand is now toxic, and not necessarily because those around him, some of them, may apparently end up in jail, although that should be a

reason, but also because he's not winning elections for the republicans anymore. so that much is clear. and that's why we're seeing this shift towards desantis. again, that kind of blank slate, that voters can kind of, you know, make whatever they need to make for themselves, but the question i have, and maybe this is kind of a question for you, joe, but i was always taught in college, i was a political science major that actually studied political science of the american south specifically. i mean, we were always taught that politics in the south is very local. the question is, can the desantis effect be replicated elsewhere? or is actually, is this just something beyond trump? and is it about the toxicity of trumpism and will desantis' antics we just talked about play with independence anywhere else? will he play with moderate republicans anywhere else? we don't really know that yet. so that's to be determined.

>> you know, yesterday somebody brought up the washington generals, the hapless basketball team that always played against the globetrotters, lost every game. there's another side of florida. there's no doubt desantis did a great job politically in getting all the money, in playing the shock opera, getting people to give him money from across the nation, and also crowding out opponents, but there's another part of it. he was running against nobody. he was playing against the washington generals. the democratic party in the state of florida is dead. you talk to -- charlie crist won't say this, he's far too plight but talk to people who work for charlie crist and worked for people running for congress that were running for constitutional offices up and down the ballot. the democratic party was never there. there was never a get out the vote operation in respect was never money. there was never support. so can it be replicated?

i mean, maybe it can. i know donors absolutely love ron desantis. i suspect, though, he's going to run into problem in states like iowa, south carolina. smaller states where you have to do some retail politicking because people in tallahassee, say one-on-one, he's not that good of a politician. we'll see. >> rather have him than trump. >> oh, yeah. still ahead on "morning joe," senator majority leader mitch mcconnell again pointing the blame for republican midterm losses squarely at donald trump. >> sound about right. >> but head of the rnc says she needs to study it more the. >> sweet jesus. >> what does she need to study? doing this a long time. i mean -- >> you know what, though? >> what does she need to study? >> doing it a long time but in her defense she loses every election. >> a good lesson that perhaps it's time to move on? plus the -- >> keep looting ronna, maybe figure out, what's the common theme in every year?

that you keep losing elections for republicans. >> yeah. plus the latest from the southern border. the biden administration proposing a new asylum policy as a huge number of migrants flood into texas. >> it's completely out of control. >> an effort to ban tiktok in the united states. interesting. as we mentioned, elon musk is no longer the richest person in the world. >> we're going to be talking to the person who is. steve radner. joins us next. >> and musk facing problems with twitter and tesla, steve radner joins ahead with charts on that. yes. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. an olive garden manager fired after sending aggressive warning about missing work. >> a message from an olive garden manager to employees we are no longer tolerating any excuse for calling off. if you are sick, you need to come, prove it to us. if your dog died you need to

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at booking.com, finding perfect isn't rocket science. kitchen? sorted. hot tub, why not? and of course, puppy-friendly. we don't like to say perfect, but it's pretty perfect. booking.com, booking.yeah. learning more about plans by the white house to address the major surge of migrants at the southern border. four sources familiar with those plans tell nbc news they involve restricting the number of migrants who qualify for asylum while opening pathways for some would-be migrants to apply from outside the united states. meanwhile, city officials in el paso, texas, say the new migrant influx is stretching resources as a trump era immigration title known at title 42 is set to end

next week. we bring in nbc news national correspondent gabe gutierrez who joins us live from the mexican side of the southern border. gabe? >> reporter: mika, good morning. the temperatures here are hovering arounden freezing right now. let me set the scene for you. step out of the way. you see this long line of migrants. hundreds, possibly around 1,000 migrants here, and i'm standing in mexico. the water you see is rio grande. those migrants on u.s. soil right now waiting to get in the u.s. beyond the border fence is downtown el paso, and this line, you can see, stretches you a the way down there. they're burning fires to keep warm and local officials in el paso say this is a sign of things to come. even more migrants crossing the rio grande into el paso, texas. thousands have come in huge groups just over the past several days burning fires to keep warm.

many from nicaragua. here in mexico tension ramping up. weeks ago riot police broke apart a migrant camp that formed along the border. now shelters are filling up. there are still hundreds of migrants that walked across the rio grande and right now waiting to get into el paso. this new influx that we're seeing comes just days before a federal court is set to lift a pandemic-era border restriction known at title 42. we met this family of four from guatemala who arrived here weeks ago. now they're waiting until title 42 is lifted before they decide whether to cross into the united states. with u.s. migrant processing centers already crowded, some migrants even sleeping outside. some officials in el paso are urging the mayor to declare a state of emergency. >> it is a crisis and it is a state of emergency. there is no, there's no municipality alone that could handle what we're seeing and what we're about to see with lifting of title 42.

>> reporter: homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas visiting el paso and facing republican calls for impeachment. a record-breaking 2.4 million illegal border crossings in the last year. critics of the biden administration say it's laxed border policies will encourage an even larger influx from title 42 is lifted. customs and borders protections tell nbc news daily border crossings could reach a record 10,000 per day. this man from ecuador says a cartel kidnapped him during his grueling journey and only survived because the mexican military rescued him and hundreds of others. secretary mayorkas says immigration is a complex issue and defending the biden administration's border policies. the department of homeland security also just announced its deploying more agents here to the border to handle this influx. mika and joe? >> all right. thank you so much. >> thank you, gabe. >> live from mexico.

in the mexican side of the southern border. so, jonathan lemire, certainly is a complex issue when you have this many migrants coming to the united states. but from the very beginning, this administration has -- has had, had a serious problem. the trump administration had a serious problem. it drove donald trump crazy, as we all know, under barack obama illegal crossings reached a 50-year low. they spiked during the trump administration, and they've -- they've gone to record highs this year. but i'm trying to understand what's going on here. what's going on here with the administration. their reasoning, their thinking. i mean, we need a safe, fair process that respects the rule of law, that's -- that's a humane process.

having these people flood up to the united states when we don't have the capacity to process them, we don't have the capacity to make sure that they're safe on their journey here or their journey -- there's nothing humane about that. that's as humane as letting homeless people sleep on grates in new york city on 0-degree weather. also a lack of fairness for immigrants. people who want to migrate from pakistan, from poland, from sudan from other parts of the world who want to come here and go through a legal process. this has to end -- this just has to end, jonathan. is there anybody in the administration that feels a sense of urgency to stop this humanitarian crisis on the southern border? and -- and by the way, this is not me saying we need less immigrants in the united states. let's increase the number of

immigrants we have in the united states. let's increase the number of refugees we allow in, but it has to be done in a humane, orderly process that's just as fair to a migrant from, from india or pakistan or sudan or poland as it is somebody from el salvador or nicaragua. this is just not fair. >> yeah. an issue that challenged the biden administration from the start, joe. they say they inherited it from their predecessor, from the trump administration but recognize what is happening now is not sustainable, likely to get worse. a suggestion when title 42 expires next week, remind everyone, that's a cdc policy put in place during the pandemic that sort of tracked down the asylum system here in the united states. the biden administration has looked to extend it. gone to court to extend it but it will expire and believe estimate more than 10,000 a day

could be crossing that southern border once that happens. the administration in its new funding request asked for $4 billion to try to deal with what's to come, but to your larger point in terms of needing a broader comprehensive border reform, biden administration told me and others they want the conversation but not seeing it from congress to do it. there hasn't been beyond fix or starts no real momentum, bipartisan momentum to get a deal done. the latest, senators to back float quickly came and went. they recognize the problem. only getting worse and a political liability beyond a humanitarian crisis but now feel their hands are tied and looking and know it will only get worse from title 42 expires in a matter of days. >> jonathan lemire, while we're talking about the white house. a couple things happened yesterday. a really good day yesterday. economically things going much better than expected.

looks like there is a possibility of that soft landing, and also, mika, of course, a historic event. president biden signing the respect for marriage act into law yesterday. >> yeah. the legislation codifies federal recognition for same-sex interracial marriages. a big win at the white house and a lot of celebrating. that and also president biden talked about the latest economic numbers. you know, he made it very clear things are looking a lot better than people expected. >> right. and really, there is a really moving part, willie, at the end when he talked about brittney griner. >> yeah. >> and he talked about families. and he talked about -- >> family being -- >> the bond of love. her family being complete again. you saw republicans, this was a bipartisan piece of legislation. you know, you really, we saw it yesterday afternoon. you understood. you were watching history, not

just political history, but a real shift. >> yeah. >> in america culturally over the past decade, the past 15 years, culminating in yesterday's signing by president biden of this legislation. >> yeah. think about that. an 80-year-old catholic man who became president of the united states who's lived a lot of life, had evolving positions on this. was out front actually in the obama administration on the issue of gay marriage signing into law, codifying at a federal level protections for gay marriage and interracial marriage. mara gay as you look at the scene there, a lot of this, of course, in response to the dobbs decision pap particular urgency around this for really an extraordinary scene yesterday at the white house. >> well, it is, and it's a nice reminder that actually the majority of the country is continuing to move forward. it's also just to be clear, i mean, we've been living in this reality, many of us, where

interracial and, of course, you know, my parents got married in, you know, 1980, barack obama's parents before that. so this is not new, but it does actually matter when you see your relationships, your life validated, actually, in front of the white house. and so, you know to some they may dismiss symbols, but actually there's great power in them, and there's also power in numbers. so it's very validating to a whole lot of people. >> and, willie, as president biden brought up yesterday, this wasn't just an act, a feel-good act. when you have a supreme court taking away a right from women, that they've had for 50 years, and then when you have a concurring opinion of -- a conservative member of the supreme court said, oh, by the way, you really ought to look into possibly taking away the rights of americans to have

contraception. the rights of americans to, to marry whom they love. there's actually, there's actually a reason why there was a, a sense of urgency yesterday to getting that legislation passed and signed into law. >> yeah. and president biden referenced clarence thomas, justice thomas yesterday, and that opinion saying this is part of why we felt we needed to push forward and should point out 12 republican senators signed on to this. got a handful in the house as well to put this over the top. we'll have much more on that ceremony place and sound in a bit. headlines, news out of forbes this morning. elon musk no longer the richest person in the world. he held that title since september of last year. now it becomes, though, to lbmh chairman bernard ar no overseed louis vuitton tiffany's and others his net worth just and youer $189 billion. musk is now second on the

billionaires list. i think he's going to be okay. he's got a net worth of almost $177 billion. most of his fortune tied to tesla's stock, lost nearly one-third of its value since musk bought twitter. it dropped another 6% monday following a weekend tweet for musk, which he targeted a formal, official at twitter and dr. anthony fauci. all of this as major investors in tesla voicing concerns about musk's focus on twitter. one hedge fund manager with about $50 million invested in tesla tweeted that musk's twitter drama is negatively impacting the brand. ap recent report from the "wall street journal" falling out of favor because the brand is branded unfavorable because of musk's recent tweets. bring in steve rattner. good morning. mystified a lot of people in the business and political world.

what is elon musk up to at twitter? >> i can't explain. doesn't make a lot of sense. feeled like intrigued with twitter, got himself in a contract so irreservable when he got inside twitter found out business wasn't as good as he thought, couldn't back out of it had to close the deal but his behavior since then inexplicable. >> look at the impact it's had. first chart, tesla sort of versus twitter and musk polarizing brand here. >> yeah. interesting, because tesla for a long time was kind of apolitical brand. people bought them because they liked the car, loved the cars. what's happened this year is a spread between the republican view of tesla and the democratic view of tesla. first few months of the year pretty much the same. net favorability rating of about 25 to 30% from both republicans and democrats, and now you see the sort of jaws opening and now republican net favorability to tesla of 26% but only 10% net

favorability rating from democrats. so it's become a politicized brand. i put to twitter here as a point of comparison. interesting in itself. twitter was pretty widely perceived as a democratic brand, favored by democrats, but that's also closed and now it is roughly even on twitter between republican and democratic views of twitter, but tesla, the jaws have opened. that's not good company. >> look at that chart. all just in this year. an amazing change just in the span of a few months. your next chart, tesla now facing a little competition. people out in that market smelling a little blood in the water, maybe? >> this, yeah. a lot of competition coming. that was coming anyway. obviously, people were going to get into electric car business. we have, 48 electric vehicles sold today. projections are going to go to 159 by 2025. so tesla was inevitably going to lose market share. if you start with 80% plus

market share only one way to go and you can see that happening here. how much of that is elon musk's current activities and how much is competition? we don't know. tesla will sell more cars this year than last but not by a huge margin but tesla has other issues. on the right, a chart of recalls that happened to tesla. combination of software, dark colored bars at the bottom and service required hardware at the top part of it. so there are also now quality controls about tesla that is starting to work their way through the ecosystem and something that elon musk also should be worrying about if he weren't spending all of this time worrying about something else. >> as i said, all of this activity on twitter, all this sort of dabbling into politics on twitter is affecting the price of tesla stock. how bad has it gotten? >> really bad. a number of analysts and investors and all that who have put out statements and tweets and things basically as you said

saying that elon has to get back to business and what's he doing over at twit jer should be at tesla because of the issues. you can see that the stock is down 54%. 54, 5-4 percent so far this year. >> wow. >> the 15th worst out of 500 companies in the s&p. the 15th worst. market obviously down a little, but nothing like that. you can also see in the gray line in the middle, that the auto companies as a whole are not down nearly as much and actually up a bit since the 27th of october, when elon bought twitter. tesla's down 29% just in those couple months, and the s&p is up, ford up, gm up in that period of time as well. he's had, he's had a rough time. you know, back to the politicization of this thing. there's an interesting irony which is that tesla got, elon got, a huge loan from, under the

obama administration to build this factory. mitt romney in 2012 called tesla a loser company and now it's all sort of flipped around. >> wow. that's crazy. >> and what a disastrous move on twitter. for him economically. talk quickly about numbers yesterday, steve. your input. inflation down more than expected. the fed a bit of a split jury on what that means over the next year. but certainly does look like there's more of a chance of a soft landing through 2023. what your read on everything you've seen over the past few days? >> yeah. definitely the news yesterday was good news. we're talking about tenths of a percent of interest, tenths of a percent, not huge amounts. better than we thought. bond yields came down a good thing. people i think are feeling a bit better about it at the moment. fed is going to meet today. we'll get, this afternoon,

around 2:00 or 2:15, we'll get not just latest interest rate move, up 50%. also get their new economic forecast as well as their interest rate forecast and all of that will tell us a lot about the future course. honestly, yes, odds of a soft landing improved somewhat. vast majority of economists and wall street types, all that, still expect a recession in our future here if we're really going to get inflation all the way back to the 2% jay powell keeps talking about. >> all right. steve rattner, thank you very much for coming on this morning. so today is a pretty difficult day in newtown, connecticut. today marks ten years since a gunman entered sandy hook elementary school killing 20 first graders and 6 educators. the front page of the "connecticut post" pays tribute to the victims of the shooting as the "post" notes in the ten

years since the families of the victims have been left to grieve, cope and to work to moving forward while honoring the lives of their children and family members. joining us now, democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut, and senator, so much has not changed in some ways since sandy hook, which is difficult. there's been some movement on gun reform, but certainly not enough. >> yeah. listen, this whole world, this country, has changed, since my eighth grader and fifth grader off to school today and they enter schools in classrooms fundamentally different. these kids have to think about that no child should have to think about. their survivor. that being said, i think today is a day to remember all of the good, all of the light that has come to this world since sandy hook. all of those families have

started charitable organizations, not for profit organizations that have changed peoples lives around this country. we did begin building a modern anti-gun violence movement the day that sandy hook happened and, yes, took us ten years to finally get a federal law passed that tightens our nation's gun laws. across the country, 500 different laws and referendums at the state and local government ta helped protect our schools. i get it. so much more progress to be made, but today a day to remember all of those kids, think about all the parents, think of the sandy hook community and realize amidst all of that grief those families have stepped up and done incredible things to try to help sandy hook heal and to try to make schools and families healthier all across this country. that's really what i'm thinking most about today. >> you know, ten years ago was a day that really ripped open

americans, broke america's heart in a way that 9/11 did as well. we -- we, of course, everybody swore never again. parkland came. uvalde came. so many others came. >> every week, every day sometimes. >> it really was -- and i want to talk about the progress that has been made, because sandy -- sandy hook was, it was a day that changed everything. i think the signage, you look at the shifts in opinion after sandy hook. >> uh-huh. >> i mean, opinion changed, and it led to what you were able to marshal through earlier. before we do i want to talk about the hell these family members went through, even after burying their children. the conspiracy theories about

them. the conspiracy theories about their children, their dead children. the -- the -- the parents that had to move because of the conspiracy theories. we talked about our friends, we talk about our family members that, that feed into these conspiracies theories. could you, please, as someone who knows these families as well as you do, talk about the hell that these conspiracy theories and these lies from people like alex jones visited upon family members already grieving? >> so i don't think any of us can understand what it feels like to lose a child. i don't even try to pretend to know what that experience is like, but then to lose a child in such a public way. right? to have your grief have to exist not just privately but with tv cameras essentially surrounding everything corner of your little

town. it's just a uniquely cataclysmic experience, and then within days, to have people with big mega phones in this country deny that your child ever died. to claim that you were an actor in some disgusting play. that started happening with days, within weeks of sandy hook, and the people who follow alex jones and his ilk started targeting these families. but it wasn't that -- it wasn't that these families could ignore if they wanted the conspiracy theoies that said sandy hook didn't happen. in fact, those people started hunting the families in sandy hook. as you mentioned. some of them had to move away. but you know what? they didn't just take it. they fought back. they sued alex joan, they won in court. and whether or not alex jones will actually pay the money ordered to pay that sent a clear message to anybody else who's thinking about spreading lies and conspiracies theories there is a price to be paid.

those families, by the way, didn't stop there. many also sued the gun manufacturers that sold the guns to the shooter in sandy hook and people said they couldn't win that lawsuit either and they won. which is going to make a lot of gun manufacturers think twice how they market those guns. these families made a lot of change even outside of the legislative arena in the last ten years. >> senator, this is a, it's hard to think of anything more shameful than that. i'm sure there are some things but for chasing down these families, going to charity fund-raising harassing them when trying to raise money for their foundations is awful. but u want to focus on the families you've got ton know so well over the last decade and unfortunately had relation. the around what happened at sandy hook that day. not just what they've been through publicly and the alex jones of it all but just think private battle, their grief over losing a kid, as you said, in such a horrific and public way, and then the survivors.

i think about the kids who were their age who survived in the school that day are juniors in high school right now, thinking about college. seniors in high school getting ready to go off and do big things and how this horrific tragedy completely reshaped the town. >> you know, joe biden came to our vigil last week commemorating the victims in sandy hook and all across the country. introduced by one of the survivors. introduced by a pretty amazing teenager who was a second grader at the time whose classroom was just across the hall and he said introducing joe biden she's alive today only because the shooter decided to take a right instead of a left, and i think it is important on a day like today. we have this number in sandy hook. 26, 26 students and educators, but that's really not an accurate way to describe the grief. to describe the trauma. so many of those teachers, those first responders who entered the school that day, those kids, they're lives are never, ever

the same. it's important to remember that today in cities all across this country there are kids who walk to and from school in violent neighborhoods who aren't sure they're going to survive that commute, and so this trauma of gun violence in this country is not just about the mass shootings. it's also about the experience of living in places where gun violence is an every-day phenomenon. when you think why we should feel such a white hot 0 imperative to change laws of this country and make this nation safer it's not just about the number of victims's 100 plus a day. it's about all others who experience that trauma and people in sandy hook performed miracles amidst that trauma. i don't want today to just be about sadness and grief for them. that should be our first but also about admiration and gratitude for the ways in which they have taken that grief and changed our country for the better. >> speaking of that, talking about those 20 kids, the staff including the principal, came out into the hallway, confronted

the gunman. tried to protect as many kids as she could and was killed. the teachers who died hudling their students, putting her lives on the line for their kids. just extraordinary courage and they literally gave their lives for their kids. i guess it's hard to take any positive away from this, senator, but what gives you hope ten years on from this terrible, terrible tragedy? >> well, one of the things that gives me hope is all the ways that those families are changing this country. i was at a school in connecticut a couple months ago that was inspired and named after one of the children who was killed that day. and -- there are all sorts of work that's being done to try to build social, emotional health all across our nation in memory of those kids, but i also know that the laws of this nation are changing. this summer passed a bipartisan

communities act as we speak saving lives. a briefing two weeks ago from the fbi walking me through cases that law passed this summer prevented mass shootings around this country and people from getting guns. shouldn't have taken ten years for that law to pass we're now on a trajectory to regularly change the laws of this nation to protect our kids and that is only available to us because those families in sandy hook and families, parents, kids, across the country decided after sandy hook to not let the gun lobby control washington. it took way too long to flip the balance of power here but i believe that that moment occurred. that gives me hope i think for the next ten years regularly changing laws of this nation to tighten our firearms laws to make our communities and schools safer. >> senator murphy, good morning. it's jonathan lemire. certainly our thoughts are with those families today but i also wanted to get you on a couple other topics in the news. first, the government shutdown,

congressional leaders last night reached a framework, they said, for a bipartisan deal keeping the lights on, if you will. what can you tell us about what was reached, how long it will go and are things you wanted to see in there included? >> well, i'm very glad they've reached this framework we're going to all be briefed on it today. i've been hard at work helping to write part of that budget. i'm in charge of writing the budget for the department of homeland security and the border and we've been trying to find a path there that can get both democratic and republican votes in particular trying to find a way to invest in technology and personnel along our border that's going to actually solve the problem rather than just get headlines. listen, we can't do another continuing resolution. this is just an absolutely insane way to run this country. so my hope is that we'll get the budget done next week. we might need a short-term continuing resolution to get there and then hopefully next year get back to the normal way

of doing things, which does not involve every single year passing the budget right before christmas. this is not inspiring confidence in the united states government democrats or republicans. >> all right. senator -- >> and ukraine. mika, one last thing for the senator here. reports more strikes in ukraine today, drone strikes. seemingly iranian-made drones madeed byes russians plunging more of that country into darkness as cold weather sets in. seems to be a deal close to send patriot missile batteries to ukraine. what difference would it make and hour important for conceive to get that equipment? kyiv to get that equipment? >> looks as if our end-of-year spending deal will include significant new money for ukraine. that's important as well because the house republican majority that's going to be taking over in january has signaled an unwillingness to support ukraine

at the same level. that's going to be an important milestone that we'll achieve next week. additional support for ukraine. yes, we need to get ukraine the ability to defend itself from these missiles that are now every single day targeting civilians. i have called on the united states to really prioritize ukraine. suggested we should take patriot missiles, also another system called the amren system that were due to go into saudi arabia, very imperfect partner and send those systems instead to ukraine. i'm glad that there's progress being made on this front, and i think it's a signal to the russians that this particular tactic of trying to wear down the ukrainians willingness to fight, the unite is not just going to help ukraine on the front, eastern ukraine but defend places like kyiv and lviv. calling on this deployment of defensive systems for a while,

we should prioritize ukraine and hopefully see progress there soon. >> senator chris murphy of connecticut. thank you very, very much for being on the show this morning. >> coming into the world cup talking an awful lot about the curse of messi. saying he had to move past it. i understood what you were saying. he predicted he would. i've got to say, you were right. >> uh-huh. >> i was wrong. >> okay. >> the saber metrics, you follow it. you understand the stuff much better than i do and you're right. lionel messi, like mika said, on the mission to win the greatest prize first time in his career. >> lionel messi tying an all-time world cup record in 25th game played. trying to keep the dream alive and winning it first time. martinez can't bear to watch.

messi buries it! >> messi converting a penalty kick. scoring in 34th minute in yesterday's world cup semifinal against croatia. turned in what might have been his best performance of a his record-tying 25 appearances on the world cup stage. also playing, pardon two goals also, alvarez. argentina's victory over croatia and this afternoon's contest tweens france and morocco. the final game played sunday at 9:00 a.m. title match. let's go right now, the "atlantic" frank ford. frank, messi, man, he's actually come through in a big way. coming in to this world cup. it's funny. sort of seen as the guy that could never perform on the big, the biggest of the big stage.

that, of course, that narrative shut. >> yes. coming into this tournament, this duopoly that governed global soccer for 15 years. christian christiano ronaldo and mettie, ronaldo flamed out. walked off the field not even con salling teammates. crying. not shaking hands of the winning team, and messi carried the this squad. lived in the shadow of one of the greatest of all-time and we've had this conversation, this debate, about where messi fits in history. and one of the things you look for in an icon is an iconic moment. i think messi had his iconic world cup moment yesterday when he turned around the 20-year-old croatian defender, and made him

kind of sit on his bum as he set up one of those alvarez goals. it was a thing of beauty watching the ball just stay at messi's feet as he danced around this defender, and i feel really happy for this guy who has, i think, just had this incredible career, and he's got this one aching gap in his resume, in this country that loves this game so, so much, and he seeed like he's on this mission and the team is built around him. everybody talks about the way in which messi kind of strolls through the game and makes these cameo appearances. where he walks and then does something utterly brilliant. >> pretty remarkable, isn't it, frank? he lays back. he sits there. he almost tries to be invisible and then in a flash he's made an extraordinary assist or scored a goal. quite different from ronaldo.

do you have any theories why ronaldo flamed out so horribly his world cup? >> well, i think it's, you know, it's a world cup is about how you fit into a collective enterprise, and ronaldo at this stage of his rear, really, this is a story about aging and how as you age as a superstar, how you make the most of your talents, how you continue to contribute. and messi found a way to integrate himself into a system, and to be a speerd spiritual leader to his team and ronaldo is ronaldo and the team just moved on. >> yeah. always been petulant, ronaldo. unlike, say, somebody like suarez, yes, bites people. no doubt about it. >> caveat! >> caveat, exactly. at the same time, when one of suarez's teammates score a goal,

he actually is more excited than when he scores a goal himself. and he flies across the field and takes such utter joy in making his teammates better. ronaldo throughout his career has always been petulant. if somebody scores a goal on his side, he sees that as a problem. speaking of problems, morocco and france. >> yeah. >> does morocco have a chance? >> they have a chance. i mean, just to, the context of the same conversation. a world cup is not about individual brilliance. although messi has shown how his individual brilliance can mesh with the team. it's about collective spirit. and morocco is just this incredible example of collective spirit. one of the things i love so much about a world cup is that it's always more than just about a game. so obviously when morocco is playing its oldcolonizer in

france, it's intensity and morocco playing in qatar. qatar is the first middle eastern arab country to host a world cup and we've talked a lot about the down sides of that, but one of the up sides is that it's going to, it's created an ethos of arab nationalism and provided almost a home-field advantage to the moroccans. i think that's really carried them through the tournament, and morocco is, plays this style where it's able to sit back, absorb pressure. they manage to defend in a way that's actually kind of fun to watch and then they counter attack quickly, but not in 1s and 2s. they counter attack in a swarm and it's actually a fairly stylish, sophisticated form of counterattacking, but france, dear joe, i mean, i know -- has his special place in your, your, your -- your florida heart. and they really are the best,

most technical team in the tournament. they're the returning champions. i -- i think, i happen to think that france is going to win today. seems like the moroccans can't implausibly continue playing the way they've been playing, and, mbappe, the other great player in the world didn't really show up in the england game, and you have to feel like this is his time. >> right. >> hmm. >> by the way, frank, talking about france having a special place in my heart. i was actually converted to european football in 2006, quarterfinals against brazil. i'd never seen an athlete do what that guy did on the field. extraordinary. though i must say now, like you, while it has been very hard to cheer for team usa on the world stage as far as, i mean, i would cheer for them in a big way but

never seemed toble until this year, and my god. they belong. and exciting, so fun to watch and willie, grant a guy he really was, he was the voice in the wilder inside for u.s. soccer. a tragedy last week. grant wahl. so glad he got to see coming of age of american soccer. >> yeah. frank, you wrote beautifully about your friend grant wahl in the "atlantic." for people who just sort of discovered him sadly after his death and learned his name and learned about the impact he had on the sport here in america is kind of a, an ambassador for the game. this long slog, the last couple of years to sort of get americans interested, involved. he certainly did that. i remember him writing the lebron james cover way back when lebron was in high school. remember that famous cover, "the chosen one" junior in high

school. lebron james. grant wahl wrote that story and many, many others. tell our audience about grant and how important he was to the game in soccer in america? >> just a beautiful human being, and he started covering the game in the late '90s when it really wasn't much of a thing here. it was, just getting started, a nis enterprise and he plays thid role growing the game, telling the story of the game and was such a big-hearted person that he brought everybody along, and you know, even though the dean of american soccer journalism, he made space for everybody else. i think one of the most important leg sis of grant wahl is that he wrote about the women's game with the same sort of intensity and rigor and respect that he wrote about the men's game, and he really played an important role in the struggle for equity in american sports. so that's part of his legacy as

well. >> wow. the "atlantic"'s frank thank you. author of the book "how soccer explains the world." thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to ban tiktok over spying concerns. we'll talk to a cybersecurity expert about that. plus, jim clyburn joins us this morning on the heels of a new report investigating the trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. we have to keep track of these investigations. and the efforts to prevent a government shutdown. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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hour. beautiful live picture of the white house. 7:31 in the morning. u.s. lawmakers announced new bipartisan legislation to ban china's popular social media app tiktok. the bill would block all transactions from any social media company under the influence of china. tiktok bytedance has not commented. a series of court battles prevented that ban from taking place. joining us former homeland department agency chris krebs. great to see you. talk tiktok. >> yep. >> what should parents know about what tiktok is and what it is not. >> tiktok is a, really interesting problem for parents right now. i mean, i think the first question you have to get through, at when and what age do kids get cell phones themselves and at that point how do you manage what they can see on the

device themselves? kids have access to tiktok seems to be the one growing fastest amongst the teenager cohort. the issue here, though, with tiktok is the information that's provided, that's presented up, you know, what is the data that's being pulled off the device? what is the data going back, perhaps, to somewhere else like china, and then how are the narratives and how is the algorithm serving up the information to the folks that are using it? the interesting thing here is that tiktok is actually not allowed in china. it does not operate in china. there's a different platform available there much more focused on educational experiences. and intellectual growth. a little bit of a difference and disparity between what's available. >> is that strategic by the chinese government? export a worse version of the product, worse meaning more mind

numbing, more trying to influence kids in a certain way and by the way trying to collect all their information while we do it? >> i think there are a number of people that believe that that could be, in fact, what they're trying to do. i'm not quite sure just yet, but that's certainly a possibility. >> so with your kids, do they or would you allow them to have tiktok? >> my oldest right now is 12, and hopefully he's not watching, because i don't want to spoil a birthday, birthday presents, but we decided at a certain age, 13, he will get a phone. but at that point i will aggressively manage that device tore any social media application of him having that phone, the point, text him, so we can call him. do basic research on the internet. that in and of itself a bit of a challenge, too, right now we are not comfortable with any social media platform. i don't think at that age kids have the intellectual capacity and maturity to process what's

going on. >> it's hard, though. is it not? kids say, dad, this is how we communicate. if i don't have snapshat i don't talk to my friends? it's a constant balance. >> twoer yaos ago taking kids to a basketball team, 11-year-olds, talking about instagram reels. i'm driving white knuckled horrified. again, i don't think they have the experience, life experiences yet and intellectual maturity to understand really how these platforms, algorithms can interact with your brain. >> instagram another set of problems. talk about it another day. particulary will among young girls. different topic for you. security power grid in america. an incident in north carolina, which was bizarre, raised a lot of eyebrows. for 40,000 people in a rural county lost power because apparently somebody went by, kind of shot up a power station? >> a little more than that. >> well, right. what i mean. explain what actually happened there beyond the headline.

>> so the united states power grid, it's obviously a massive enterprise. it's actually quite resilient. think about hurricanes, tornadoes, that come every year. knock to down, lose power a couple days but able to get it back up fairly quickly. historically we've seen folks that maybe, out in the -- taking pot shots at the grid and equipment, and doing a little limited damage that you can fix. but what happened in north carolina, moore county, was a very focused, dedicated intentional act. went up to the facility. knew exactly what they were doing and didn't just take one or two shots but multiple shots at critical equipment that eventually brought that substation down. duke energy, the company responsible for the substation able to get it back up and running in a couple of day, but it really does present a larger set of questions about, what is going on right now in the domestic extremism movement?

because there have been a series of events. half a duz outlets in the pacific northwest several down in florida as well and we do know that domestic extremists accelerationist white supremacists have a literal playbook. actually a playbook on how to attack the grid in the hopes of bringing on civil unrest and in some specific cases where three people were arrested last year for trying to attack the grid in columbus, ohio. they wanted to spark a race war. so there's a much larger set of issues here that it's not just the grid but it's broader critical infrastructure i think law enforcement has a real challenge on their hands. while we have had little cells of this in the last several years, it does seem to be much more significant, and it certainly feels like it's accelerating. also, on twitter these days, certainly feels like, you know, extremism is starting to pick up a bit. >> certainly something to keep an eye on. also want to ask about the

elections just wrapped up. georgia finally closed the book on the midterms last tuesday. you famously said of the 2020 election the most secure election in american history. it appears that way again in 2022. how did that run from your point of view? >> i think a confirmation that '22 like '20 was a safe and secure election. all elections have, you know, challenges from an administration perspective where you have technology that is included in elections for accuracy, for efficiency, for accessibility. you see what happened in maricopa county with the printers that misfired. there's ongoing litigation there. see what happens in maricopa. nonetheless, a safe and fair election. what i was most, know -- my greatest take awei from the '22 midterms was the more extreme candidates, the stop the stealers at the governor, secretary of state, and in some cases senate level were rejected by the american voters.

so my hope is that maybe the fever is breaking a little bit, and people are kind of sick of the chaos and actually want reasonable, responsible government. you know, we're not there yet, but it certainly seems like that in some critical races the american voter showed up and defended democracy. >> election deniers had a very bad night in november. jonathan lemire is here with a question for you. jon? >> good to see you, chris. we're now nearly a year into the war between russia and ukraine. since its early days a real sense russia would likely unleash a lot of cyber attacks. we know how they have attacked in the past in europe here and the united states. hasn't really happened yet but military officials fear as putin gets further and further backed up against the wall, those attacks may be coming. what's your he of concern about that and how ready is the u.s. and our allies able to repel

such incursions? >> yeah. look, i was one of those that thought in the early days of the war that cyber would be a large component of the, of the russian onslaught. i think maybe the one thing that we misjudged a little bit is, you know, when in that timeline of the attack it would happen. in my sense right now is, we're still in the early days. right? i mean, we're not even a year into this thing. so there's system time as a russian onslaught, you know, seems to falter and fail that they will go to, and we'll continue to hear about nuclear weapons. continue to hear about sabotage and other activities in europe. now, i'm working on an op-ed for foreign policy magazine and i go over this a little bit. i think what happened in ukraine was that, ukraine learned from the 2014 invasion. they invested. improved cybersecurity. they had help from u.s. and western businesses. had help from u.s. cyber

command. they were ready for this. the lessons going forward are, we have to remain vigilant. we have to remain prepared for something coming in. i do think that we're generally prepared and i also think that russian cyber operators are a bit distracted and overextended. the other thing i kind of stress here is that i hope taiwan is paying attention. i hope they're taking these lessons learned and preparing. they may have a couple years to prepare for a chinese onslaught but absolutely need to take the time they have now as well as american businesses understanding that they're very likely could be some sort of aggression in the straits of taiwan and it's not just got to be government's government, private implications here. >> covering a lot of ground. takeaway, keep an eye on your kids' phones. >> that's right. >> good to see you. >> if you give them one. let's bring in white house correspondent for politico and co-author of the playbook eugene

daniels "morning joe" senior contributor, and eugene, you have new numbers this morning from politico and morning consult on the biden administration's decision to trade brittney griner for arms dealer viktor bout. what did you find? >> yeah. we found 47% of plurality opposed the deal. including 69% of the gop opposing it. something from the very beginning of this when she was arrested, we shouldn't be surprising for folks, when brittney griner was arrested in russia immediately you started to see folks on the right, right-wing media criticizing her for the reason she got arrested. and then, you know, when the deal was announced last week, and started seeing videos of her coming home, started to erepublicans attacking her immediately feeks from donald trump on down criticizing the federal government, the biden administration for making the deal.

saying that, you know, donald trump's calling her unpatriotic saying paul whelan, former u.s. marine still in russia should have been a part of this deal. something that the administration was never on the table, but i will, important for folks to remember and point out that john bolton, the national security adviser for donald trump said there was a swap. russia said they'd give paul whelan for viktor bout during the trump administration and trump turned it down. the criticism there, interesting. >> it is interesting because trump did not speak publicly about paul whelan at all, let alone turning down a deal. okay. also looking at the battle to be the next speaker of the house, which for a while it appeared to be it was kevin mccarthy. is that still looking like that's the way it's going? and what's the support there? for him? >> the numbers are iffy for him.

on capitol hill and even with voters in 52% of gop voters said basically they're accept as house speaker whoever can win most votes from republicans and 31% of them said they are willing to, they want someone through bipartisan support, and i will say both of these numbers are not great for him, because what it shows is that, you know, for republicans saying they'll take kind of whoever, as house speaker, as long as they can get it through republican votes, that doesn't make things look good for kevin mccarthy. almost a third of those voters wanting it done through a bipartisan process. a unity speaker, what it's been called. in playbook monday, kind of unlikely to happen. murmured around capitol hill for a little while. it also means that, you know, as kevin mccarthy's dealing with the most hard right lawmakers in his party, he is continuing to figure out what are the concessions they'll make? these are not people who usually bend or break.

you can ask both speaker, former speaker and former speaker ryan. top demand basically agreeing to a snap vote to get rid of the speaker at any time. not something he wants. his ability, mccarthy, to get the votes he needs of 218 looks harder and harder every day. >> wow. politicos eugene thank you for being on this morning. coming up, the united nations set to take action on iran following the death of a young woman which has sparked weeks of protests. the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. joins us with more on that, next. plus -- pardons for pushing the big lie. we'll go through the newly revealed text messages that republican lawmakers sent to donald trump the chief of staff mark meadows, and explain how florida's governor ron desantis is trying to gain support from

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ugh! but, we found other interests. i guess we have. [both] finch! let's go! oh yeah! it's not the same. what could you do to solve the problem? we could get xfinity? that's actually super adult of you to suggest. i can't wait to squad up. i love it when you talk nerdy to me. guy, guys, guys, we're still in session. and i don't know what the heck you're talking about. a beautiful shot of new york city. sunny but chilly outside. later this morning, at the u.n. headquarters a voting effort led by the united states will take place seeking to remove iran from the commission on the status of women. the vote comes in response to i iran's treatment of women and the nation's crackdown on protests stemming from the death of 22-year-old mahsa amini.

she died back in september. joining us now, u.s. ambassador to the united nations, linda thomas greenfield. thank you for being on this morning. >> thank you so much. why don't you answer the question for americans who, i know when they hear this they are asking the question, how in the world would iran get on such a commission. it's the same question that people often ask when they see how some of the worst abusers of human rights are on the u.n. council of human rights? >> it's interesting that countries that tend to be abusers love to be part of institutions and organizations where they know they will be criticized. iran ran for a seat and they won. but today is the right day to remove them from the commission

on the status of women. there's no place for them when they are killing women in the streets as we speak. this is the right time to do it, and it really is the right thing to do and we will be voting at about 10:00 this morning, or a little bit later and removing them from the council. >> what is the message you are hoping to send to iran by doing so? >> there are two messages here. the first is to the iranian government that we will not stand by and allow them to sit on this commission that was created to protect women, to promote women, to support women. we will not let them sit at the table with us. the second message is to iranian women that we heard your voices and we support you. iranian women have asked us to do this. we heard them and we are moving

forward. >> speaking of iranian women, it's not just the killing of mahsa amini. there are reports of torture of men, protesters being taken in and tortured as well as women. what are you all finding out about the abuses happening in light of the death of mahsa amini and the protests that happened and are still happening? >> we have seen those reports and they are credible reports. we heard just this week that a young soccer player that protested has been threatened with execution. this is the sign of a regime that does not respect any of its people, men or women. it's time to hold them accountable. >> good morning. on that note there seems to be a real escalation and reprisals from the government there, and a couple public executions in recent days. i wanted to get, first and

foremost, your reaction to that. also, do you anticipate anybody opposing the measure today to try and remove iran from this group? are there other nations that might side with tehran? >> what is happening on the streets of iran is really horrific, what the government is doing to attack protesters, and that's why we think that this action today is so important. there are governments who have made arguments that we never kicked a member state off of an organization related to the u.n., but, again, we think this is the appropriate action for us to take now given what is happening with iran. we know that there's tremendous support for this action, and we will vote on it today. >> and ambassador, we also have

seen at the u.n., it's not always unanimous when it comes to matters of russia. give us the latest there. as the war goes on and we are entering the year-mark in this conflict. what more with the united nations do to put pressure on putin or support kyiv as the war rages on? >> two things here. first, we have to keep the pressure on putin. we cannot allow there to be any light between this unified coalition that we have built here in new york to condemn the actions that the russians have taken against ukraine. secondly, we have to continue to show the ukrainians that we support them, to send a message of support. i was in ukraine a few weeks ago and i met with president zelenskyy, and i met with women and children who were living in a shelter after their village

had been attacked and there was no water or electricity. what impressed me there was their resilience, their commitment to continue to stand strong, and president zelenskyy's resolve to ensure that he would continue to fight for the people of ukraine, and for that reason we have to show ukraine here as well as the united nations and around the world. >> thank you very much for coming on this morning. of course we will be watching the vote at the u.n. a little later on today. >> thanks so much. coming up, majority whip, jim clyburn, will join us here talk about the previous handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

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a live look at capitol hill. welcome back to "morning joe." it's wednesday, december 14th. we have a lot to cover this morning. newly revealed text messages are shedding more light on the attempted coup by donald trump and his allies in congress. plus, new polling has governor ron desantis leading trump by -- >> did i hear right? >> by 23 points. >> 23 points? wow. >> that's a lot. he's gaining ground over donald

trump, ron desantis. >> i am hearing this from republican leaders in different states whether it's in new england or deep south or out west, and it seems this is a national trend, of course, in the national polls and in individual state polls. just heard one yesterday from the deep south where desantis has moved decidedly in front of trump. >> and desantis represents an alternative to donald trump, and 31% want donald trump, and 60% say they don't and that's about donald trump and not about desantis. >> yeah. and an alternative, and they said i would vote for trump but i don't feel like it anymore, and he makes me uncomfortable. ron desantis makes people

comfortable. >> because donald trump loses elections for republicans. i have never seen anybody run a party that loses an election in 2017, 2018, 20 -- >> they like it. >> lee zeldin ran a pretty good race in the state of new york, and pulled a lot of republicans over the finish line and the house races, and one of the reasons, willie, why kevin mccarthy has a chance to become speaker is because of the race lee zeldin ran in new york state. he says, i will help you guys out and help you do nationally what i was able to do in new york state. no thanks, we'll keep the woman that keeps using every year.

this is from an operation to a club. i don't get it. >> if her credentials is her allegiance to donald trump, is that where the party wants to be after a special election in '21, and 2020 and 2018 -- you can go on and on. at what point when a football program has a head coach has a losing record, and you say it might be time for a new coach. >> might be. and how desantis may be using the covid vaccine to drive a wedge. it's complicated. the house sub committee on the coronavirus crisis will hold its final hearing, and there the panel will discuss the findings of a report compiled of

interviews with those on the front lines of the coronavirus 19 response. and jim clyburn is also the majority w.h.i.p. and will serve as an assistant democratic leader in the next congress. good to have you back on the show. congressman, i guess i am concerned -- how much does this look at how many lives could have been saved, especially in the first few years of the coronavirus pandemic, because it seems like it took the united states and the administration a long time to find its way? >> first of all, thank you very much for having me, mika, joe and the others. what we have found here is the past administration at the onset of the coronavirus continued to put politics over people. you remember all of these heroes that this president was calling

upon after denning it existed at all. this committee was formed by nancy pelosi to look at how our response would benefit the american people. right off the bat, we started looking at how the monies being appropriated by congress was being spent, and whether it was being done efficiently effectively, and what we found is right away we started getting money returned because people were getting money they were not entitled to. then we found out a lot of people in the administration were doing stuff trying to prevent effective implementation of the virus -- rejections to

put together the vaccines. we had people -- and they are still denning the effectiveness of the vaccine, everybody wanting to know where it came from. the fact of the matter is our job is to deal with it now that it's here, and so we got a little concerned when we saw implications the other day in an op-ed, i think it was "the washington post," imply that the republicans are going to do some stuff in the next congress that they refused to do in this congress, and i always say, you can best tell what people will do by looking at what they have done, and they have not done anything in this congress. this passed without a single republican vote, and none of them voted for it, and it's been effective and would have been

much better off if we had cooperation by the republicans. this report will make 30 recommendations as to what we think should be done going forward, and because we know we will have these kind of health care challenges in the future. the scientific experts were thought listened to, and we think they should be. we had a lot of intervening from politicians that we should not have had. we think that while they are focused on penalizing dr. fauci, there should be folks wanting to do things preventing things from happening. >> we found out from some members of congress that claimed to be anti-big government who were the first in line to get covid relief. we also found out, of course, that there are a lot of really

wealthy people who owned jets that decided to actually get covid relief for their own -- a set of corporations to fly their private jets around. a lot of the wealthiest americans, a lot of republicans, there are people who claim to be anti-government using especially the trump covid relief bills to pad their pockets. what do you know about that? >> absolutely. billions of dollars, we found, were ill obtained by various corporations connected to the past administration. we found that there are members in the administration that were overriding the scientists and not allowing their recommendations to go forward. when i say billions, i do mean

billions. this sub committee is not authorized or equipped to deal with this, and we turned all of those issues over to the appropriate authorities and you will find much of that in this report as well. we did in the first two weeks get $10 million returned. we had 109 million returned. this sub committee was not equipped with what was needed to go if forward. these publications are going to be made public at our hearing this afternoon and hopefully they will correct these measures going forward. >> congressman, good morning, we were talking on the show yesterday to dr. fauci about lessons learned in the evolution of the disease, and we talked about schools, and schools were closed for a very long time,

perhaps too long knowing what we know now about the way children tolerate coronavirus and covid-19. do you look at all in that report and what should be done next time in terms of kids being back in school? >> yes, we do. our recommendations goes through that as well, and you know, these things are interrelated. we have to think not just about the children who are connected to the internet and can go forward with their educational pursuits, and we had children who lost a year's worth because things going on in the country did not impact them the right way, and then we had programs, a policy infrastructure bill, $65 billion for the internet,

because we saw what happened to these kids when they could not go to school. in my own family, i saw my grandchildren staying connected when their classmates were not. this is the kind of thing that we dealt with, not just in this report but we were doing this all along in the congress. i was using my experiences with this sub committee to inform the entire democratic caucus as to what should go into these bills in order to insulate our children from this kind of happenstance going forward. you will see a lot of that in this report. also in the legislation that we have already passed. >> congressman jim clyburn, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. we really appreciate it. >> greatly appreciate it. before we go to break. more on the fallout for the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange, ftx.

sam bankman-fried, the prosecutors say he lied, took peoples' money and used it for his own personal benefits, but the new ceo of sam bankman-fried's company called it old-fashioned embezelment. >> sam bankman-fried is in a jail in the bahamas. in new york, federal authorities laying out their criminal case against him. >> i want to be clear. this case is about fraud. fraud is fraud. >> they say this fraud is one of the biggest in u.s. history, with a staggering $8 billion in customer deposits now missing. and prosecutors charged him with eight counts, and they say he moved billions of dollars of ftx customer funds to his hedge fund, alameda. >> he used that money with his

personal benefit to cover expenses and debts of his hedge fund, alameda research. >> according to a civil complaint filed by the scc, sam bankman-fried lied, promising consumer protections that were never there and pitching the exchange with high profile celebrities. customers around the world believed his lies. sam bankman-fried allegedly used the money for his own personal gain, for lavish real estate purchases and political donations. >> i made a lot of mistakes. there are things that i would give anything to do over again. i didn't ever try to commit fraud on anyone. >> sam bankman-fried was supposed to testify at a

congressional hearing on tuesday, but instead the ceo that took over after sam bankman-fried resigned. >> it was a collapse, and it was a small group of grossly inexperienced, nonsophisticated individuals. >> not much credible there. >> jonathan, i want to circle back. jim, it's always great to have jim clyburn on, and right now you talked about at the top of the show, my sources are telling me the same thing, kevin mccarthy having a really difficult time getting to 218, and now even some around mccarthy are saying, well, maybe we don't need to get to 218, maybe if there are people that aren't present voting, and nancy pelosi on many got 216, and

maybe we only need 215 or 216, and there are four, maybe five hard core nos against mccarthy, and there could be some coming out later being never mccarthy votes -- >> never kevin -- >> yeah. never kevin. and i suspect right now -- talk about what you are hearing about never kevin. >> never kevin. yes, this is the parlor game in washington right now, people doing their own w.h.i.p. counts, and right now he's a little short. you hit it. there are four or five absolute nos, and it would be unlikely to

see those republicans change their mind and there's another group of people who are leaning against or are uncertain, and we have seen kevin mccarthy bend over backwards to get support, and i think that most people i speak to here on the hill say they don't see much of a bipartisan way under way for mccarthy, and if not him then who? there's steve scalise chatter. if this were to go a couple rounds and mccarthy can't get there, scalise is liked and there's perhaps talk that he is a more palatable choice.

>> we have breaking news in from the soccer world. we have been talking about grant wahl, obviously. the wife of a prominent soccer journalist said that the writer's death last week while recovering the world cup was an aortic valved >> oh, so sad. >> the sudden death explained by an aortic aneurism of this guy who meant so much, not only to the soccer world but the sports world in general. >> tragic news. there were questions surrounding his death. his brother wondered what

happened. his brother last night apologized for his initial remarks where he pointed the finger at the qatar government, and he regrets that. he had been feeling sick in the days before he died, and now this news here. and what a ambassador he was for u.s. soccer. it is just -- as we are looking here at his being honored in the press box in qatar, it's such a shame, and not only he misses the semifinals now but won't be here for the 2026 u.s. cup, because i believe he played a role in helping america get that cup because they fell in love with the game. >> again, breaking news from the "washington post," a journalist

that died at the world cup suffered an aortic aneurism. >> according to his wife. >> according to his wife. coming up, we will go through more of the newly revealed text messages sent to donald trump's former chief of staff, mark meadows. and we are going to be joined by karen bass from los angeles, who just declared a homeless crisis in the city. we'll be right back. ight back. ♪ breeze driftin' on... ♪ [coughing] ♪ ...by, you know how i feel. ♪ if you're tired of staring down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, ♪ ♪ it's a new day... ♪ ...stop settling. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler,

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welcome back. texts messages never seen publicly providing new insight into just how deeply the trump white house engaged with debunked election conspiracy theories. >> trying to overthrow an election. >> this is following the 2020

vote. the 2,319 texts are from the phone of former white house chief of staff, mark meadows, after being turned over to the house january 6th committee earlier this year. the latest batch of released messages shows multiple republican lawmakers offering to cooperate with plans to keep trump in office, seemingly in exchange for pardon requests. >> yeah, that's not good. >> one such message came from north carolina's newly elected senator, ted budd, and then another message has to do with the call where trump asked georgia secretary of state, brad raffensperger to find the exact number of votes he needed to

reverse joe biden's 2020 win in the state. >> all i want to do is this, i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state and flipping the state is a great testament to our country. the people of georgia are angry. the people of the country are angry and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you recalculated, because in 2,236 absentee ballots, and they are all numbers done by accounting firms and law firms and et cetera, and even if you cut them in half it's more votes than we need. >> well, mr. president, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. >> i just can't -- that call

never gets old. >> willie, the thing is -- >> in a bad way. >> we all grew up, and we would see reruns in "perry mason", and there would be the smoking gun. there's always a smoking gun. the first thing every law professor taught you was, this ain't "perry mason," and there's never a smoking gun and you have to piece together your case, piece by piece and bit by bit, and over time if you work hard enough you will get the theory of the case and you will prevail in court. this is straight out of "perry mason." donald trump is like, i want you to steal this election for me and get this many votes. it's shocking. there's no way that, i believe,

that -- i want to be careful what i say here. let me just say, you certainly seem to have a prima fascia case in the state of georgia to indict donald trump. it's shocking. >> we know there's an indication where the justice department is looking, right where you are talking about. you can't just have the guy say it on the phone, and there he did. it was recorded -- brad raffensperger recorded the phone call because he suspected donald trump would do something like that. and fred keller floated a plan to meadows, and this is actually how they were going to explain it. trump would claim he was trying

to trap raffensperger to see if he could be trusted. if the phone conversation was leaked, the theory went, keller said it would raise the question, quote, if raffensperger can't be trusted on a phone call, how could he be trusted with georgia's elections? get this, now. meadows replied he loved that idea. we will explain it away by saying it was part of our plan to trap raffensperger to see if he could be trusted. another exchange shows meadows agreeing to meet with georgia republican allen after he tells him he has a source he could prove there was election fraud. there's a source that is feeding his source. he then sends meadows a conspiracy theory about romanians and ukrainians stealing u.s. identifications --

we are not making this stuff up. joe, some of the texts we talked about yesterday included our running joke, yours and mine, about the italian dude with the satellite. that conspiracy theory being taken very seriously by mark meadows passed on to donald trump who then went to the justice department and said look into the italian dude with the satellite that used the satellite to change votes from trump to biden. >> speaking of running jokes, you remember back in 1947, you and i come back from the war and what do we do? >> sure. >> we are like, we saw patton and he needed more oil -- what did we say? what if we created something called coal fusion, and we have been working on it sense '47, and it looks like the government finally listened to us, and i don't need to get rich off of

this fusion, and you and i have been working on this for 70, 80 years. >> yeah, we know what happened. i think that's enough for us. in our hearts. >> willie, as we bounce around like a ping pong ball in a marble cage -- i don't know what that means, 1980, i -- i read you something from the google machine. from december 10th, 1980, because as you were talking about how meadows is like, hey, wait, maybe we could just say that we were doing an investigation on our own on raffensperger? i said, wait, this sounds a lot like that florida congressman in ab scam, and he couldn't shove all the cash in, and he said he was doing his own investigation.

"washington post," 1980, richard kelly was investigating his own suspicions that his congressional staff had been infiltrated by persons that could destroy his political career, and he was, quote, seeking out the truth on his own. and nobody bought that in the 1970s during abscam, and nobody is going to buy this now. i know mark meadows and have known him for quite sometime, and i sat and talked to him when he was still a member of congress. i tried to provide him some guidance. every time you talk to him he seems like he's listening, and then you talk to others who were telling him the exact opposite, and he seems like he's listening there.

the lack of judgment shown by mark meadows of the incoming is absolutely shocking. i had staff members in their 20s and early 30s when i first got to congress, and they would have cut anything off approaching any impropriety like this in a second. it's shocking what these reveal about mark meadows. >> yeah. i am still blown away by this idea for a cover story that donald trump was trying to insnare raffensperger. yes, we -- joe, we know this, the chief of staff position is meant to be a gatekeeper, and it's meant to keep things away from the president that are damaging or conspiratorial, and only put to the president things that would matter, and could advance his agenda for the american people, and that's not at all what meadows is doing, he's a conduit, the crazy things

brought into the white house and placed on the resolute desk. no gatekeeper whatsoever. and the texts over the last few days, it's not uncommon for the chief of staff to speak with congressmen, to text with them, and he's up to his neck with the conspiracy theories, and these texts seem to be on a silver platter for a number of investigations against donald trump. coming up, florida governor, ron desantis, felt this way about vaccines. >> no doubt ron desantis had a message about floridians, and he did not hold back when taking on the topic. >> these vaccines are saving lives and they are reducing mortality. if you are vaccinated, fully vaccinated, the chance of you getting seriously ill or dying

from covid is effectively zero. >> to quote the governor, vaccines are saving lives. >> that was good. that was good. great. >> well, now he's cozying up to vaccine skeptics. why? one answer could be 2024. we'll talk about that. >> has he become a hippie? >> no, i think he wants to run for president and he's appealing -- anyhow, we'll be right back. first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. even walking was tough. i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. cosentyx can help you move, look, and feel better... by treating the multiple symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting...get checked for tuberculosis.

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new polling shows support from donald trump's 2024 presidential bid is trending downward.

the "usa today" poll had him at 60% in july, and then the number dipped to 56% in october and is now at 47%, while 31% of republicans want trump to win, 61% say they prefer another nominee that would continue the policies trump pursued. the overwhelming choice is florida governor, ron desantis. >> that's amazing. >> he leads trump by double digits, 56% to 33%. and desantis out performed trump against biden. desantis leads biden by four points trial trump trails biden by seven. >> look at the numbers. keep the numbers up right now, and jonathan, at the end of the day this is the calculation republicans are making, not that they are shocked that he is an immoral guy that committed a lot

of crimes, but he can't beat joe biden. he keeps losing elections for republicans, and i think they finally understand that. >> yeah, we can tick through the disastrous launch trump has had since he began the 2024 campaign, the dinner with the white supremacists, and what matters is how poorly the republicans did in the midterms, and that's what the gop is grappling with right now. they should have had the red wave with the inflation and the historical trends, and they didn't in large part because they were saddled with donald trump's hand-picked candidates who were disastrous in the senate. we should not the draw conclusions. we don't know that this is a done deal. trump has looked weakened before and somehow rallied back, and this is his lowest moment since

january 7th, should be sure. and a lot of republicans say they are coming back now, but trump has vanished. where has he gone? republicans are asking, why is he not out there and doing rallies and not trying to get people excited about him again? he's not doing anything. desantis is a blank canvas, and so he, of course, will be vetted and tested in the months ahead, and the polls are good for desantis and it's more about a problem for trump. coming up, the newly sworn in major of los angeles, karen bass is standing by. she joins our conversation straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪♪ over the last 100 years,

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governor desantis is now launching a new battle against covid-19 vaccines in his state. >> impanel the state-wide grand jury to investigate any and all wrong doing in florida with respect to covid-19 vaccines. >> governor desantis did not specify what wrong doing they were looking for, but would look into the harmful side effects. and joining us now, a national reporter, ron caputo. this action about vaccines, what is he up to here? >> well, that's a good question. what desantis is up to is kind of a political brand that was built in 2020, questioning expert opinion about covid-19,

response to covid, opening schools and opening the state up and fighting vaccine mandates. what has happened over the years is desantis has gone from this full-throated supporter of vaccines, and called them lifesaving and told people to get them, and then became anti-vaxx when it came to covid-19. and it landed in trump world in the words of one adviser, a shot across the bough. and it's the effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccine, and that's something trump liked to brag about, but what happened last year -- it was about a year ago, an event in dallas, trump talked about, hey, you have gotten your booster, and boosters were good, and it was an event with bill o'reilly. he got booed.

and this really surprised him and made him realize there's a portion of the republican base that is anti-vaxx. that space is being filled now with ron desantis and being viewed as a threat with trump supporters and trump backers and advisers and trump world more broadly. >> what is funny about this, again, it's all gesturing, and it's all ron desantis playing the shock opera, and he wants to shock democrats and shock the media and he wants people to scream and yell. you look at his history, and we're starting to see a trend. he goes after disney and he attacks the magic kingdom, and attacks mickey mouse, and suddenly we hear maybe disney is not going to get touched after all. it's the same with the crime

unit, and we see black floridians being arrested, and you get to the end of it and find there's not a whole lot there other than ron desantis wanting to grab headlines. you can say the same things about him lying to migrants and getting them on a plane and flying them to martha's vineyard, and all shock opera and no follow-through. now he's sounding like a left-wing anti-vaxxer from 1998, but he knows the stats. he knows all the stats don't back this up. he knows there will be nothing that comes out of this investigation. it's just more gesturing, huh? >> well, i'll be interested to see -- what's interesting about the timing is the day he made this announcement, there was a study that was released saying

the covid-19 vaccine had saved 3.2 million american lives. now, desantis' tenure as governor and his management of covid has been pretty controversial, because at a certain point, he flung the state open, and that almost coincided with the delta wave, which really ravaged the state. but it hasn't politically affected him so far in that he just won his election by nearly 20 points, which is pretty darn big in florida, which used to be a swing state. but it's difficult to get an answer out of the administration as to exactly what sort of lying the pharmaceutical companies allegedly did, what sort of criminal exposure they have. because during his announcement, he compared this to the opioid manufacture resh sresh -- manufacturers. >> willie, it's absolutely insane. if you look at the states that had the most deaths per capita,

you have a lot of states that are deep, deep red at the top of the list, where anti-vax sentiment runs as high as it used to run among hippies on the west coast. mississippi, oklahoma, alabama, west virginia, arkansas, tennessee, you got new jersey in there, louisiana, kentucky, georgia, and yes, and you keep going. and there's florida at number 12, i believe. states like california, down at 40. and so, again, he understands. i mean, he's trying to run as the guy trying to get covid right. he didn't get covid right. he just didn't. and the same thing, again, with the vaccines. this is -- this is what you and i deal with every day with our friends. and the conspiracy theorys.

and people sending around facebook posts, and people getting information from chinese religious cults. and people getting information from -- you know, he -- i'm not shocked. i'm not stunned. i'm not playing to the shock opera. i'm just saying here's another example, just like disney, where ron desantis is going to prove at the end that he's all hat, no cattle, and it's all a big, fat, phony gesture. >> we will see. as john said, he's a blank canvas right now. some people will fill in the blanks on ron desantis, as his profile continues to rise. which raises the question about those polls we just showed. kind of eye popping numbers at this point, to have the former president of the united states, who has already announced his run, trailing ron desantis by 23 points. this poll any way, this is a big hypothetical. we have no idea if desantis is

going to run. talking to people around florida and around governor desantis, when they see a number like this, what does it tell them? >> what it tells them is what you said before, donald trump, since his aannouncement, which hasn't gone as smoothly as anyone would have wanted in trump world, his numbers have continued to erode. here in the poll you referenced, the pollster said that his numbers cratered, which is apparently true. but the main problem donald trump has right now, he wanted to get in early. he thought there would be a big midterm election wave for republicans. he committed to an announcement right after the election didn't go republicans' way. and since then he's been floundering. and desantis has had the luxy, and has the luxury of both time and money. his poll numbers continue to either increase or donald trump's continue to decrease in

theoretical matchups. and desantis had at least $63 million in the bank after the election. what he's done since then is he's kind of steadily taken on these issues which get people talking, get the right wing riled up, get the left wing very mad. he's also done a good job of avoiding things he doesn't want to talk about. right now, you wouldn't know it. in tallahassee, there's a special session of the legislature to address a looming financial crisis with millions of florida homeowners. and that's property insurance. and the legislature looks right now in order to address the issue of skyrocketing insurance rates, to pass a quote unquote reform that is going to limit people's rights to sue. it might raise rates for people, and not guarantee any lower rates. what does ron desantis end up doing? he winds up talking about covid-19 vaccines, not property insurance. coming up, is america's fever breaking? our next guest says donald trump

may be struggling, but the country is sick. that is straight ahead on "morning joe." ahead on "morning joe."

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