had proof. he put america for four years through an impeachment that he knew was a lie. what i am doing with the intel committee, bringing it back to the jurisdiction it's supposed to do, forward looking to keep this country safe. keep the politics out of it. so, yes, i'm doing exactly what we're supposed to do. >> mccarthy saying swallow and schiff won't be on the committees. your quick reaction to that? >> it's nothing new from kevin mccarthy for a while. he has been saying in house republicans took the majority, swalwell and schiff will not be on the committee. not a new revelation from kevin mccarthy though still significant because he was vowing to follow through with that pledge in the after math of house republicans taking on the majority. terrific stuff as always. thank you so much for joining us this morning. and thanks to all of you for

getting up "way too early" ton friday morning and all weekend long. "morning joe" starts now. aides found classified documents inside his delaware home. he has had them for a while because a lot of them have to do with the louisiana purchase. >> the justice department is taking this seriously. today the attorney general appointed a special counsel to investigate biden's handling of the documents. i'm not saying biden is getting worried, but he just texted rudy giuliani, so you go, wow, that's not good. that's not good. >> all right. republicans get the special counsel they have been calling for to investigate president biden's handling of classified documents. it comes as we are learning more about the files and where they were found. we'll also take a look at some of the hypocrisy inside the gop when it comes to the special counsels for trump and biden.

meanwhile, a prominent republican says it is time for the party to move on from former president donald trump, calling him a quote proven loser. we'll have more of those comments just ahead, and we'll also dig into the faa's explanation for its massive system failure earlier this week. the agency is now placing the blame on contract workers. could one person literally ground all planes across america? that's the question we'll be looking into. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's friday the 13th, willie. joe has the morning off, but we have a lot going on, starting out in washington, d.c. again. >> yes, and big news concerning the president of the united states. attorney general merrick garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate how classified documents ended up in the personal possession of president joe biden. at a press conference yesterday, garland announced the selection of robert hur, a former trump appointed u.s. attorney to

determine if any laws were broken in connection with this matter. >> extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. this appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. >> in a statement, hur writes quote, i will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial and dispassionate judgment. the appointment of a special counsel comes as new details continue to come to light about president biden's mishandling of classified documents from the obama administration. prior to yesterday's announcement of a special counsel, nbc news was first to report biden's team had discovered classified files at a

second location, separate from the dozen or so we learned about at the start of the week. the second spot was a garage at biden's home in wilmington, delaware. it's unclear how many files were found in that instance, but their discovery was reported to the department of justice by biden's team on december 20th. that search was triggered by the first discovery of documents in early november inside an office previously use bid biden at the penn-biden center in washington. according to two sources, one of the documents found was marked with the highest government classification, and yesterday, the doj said it was informed a single document had been found in another room at biden's delaware home on wednesday connected to the garage where the other documents were discovered. it's unclear why that file was only just now found when the white house says an extensive search of all the president's properties had been taking place since early november. that full search, according to the white house, now is

complete. speaking before the attorney general's announcement of the special counsel yesterday. the president responded to the new revelations. >> classified material next to your corvette, what were you thinking? >> let me -- i'll get a chance to speak on all of this god willing soon. as i said earlier this week, my corvette is in a locked garage. it's not like they're sitting in the street. as i said earlier this week, people know i take classified documents and classified materials seriously. the department of justice was immediately notified and the lawyers arranged for the department of justice to take possession of the document. we're going to see all of this unfold. i'm confident. >> that was before garland's announcement, after garland's

announcement, the white house issued another statement, the president acted promptly on the discovery of the mistake. the doj has interviewed several aides who worked for then vice president biden in the final days of the obama administration including someone who specifically helped to pack up his office in january of 2017. let's bring in former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg, pulitzer prize winning columnist at "the washington post" eugene robinson, former white house communications director under president obama, jennifer palmeri, she is cohost of show time's "the circus" and white house bureau chief at "politico," cohost of "way too early," jonathan lemire. i want to begin with you in the appointment of the special counsel by attorney general merrick garland. you say and obviously it's true that the movement of classified documents illegally is a very serious matter but you say the appointment of the special

counsel is unnecessary. why do you say that? >> i've said that twice now, willie, once respect to the special counsel appointed to investigate mr. trump and most recently with rob hur's appointment. i know rob hur, he's a wonderful guy. this is in no way to impugn his integrity. he's smart, honest, fair, a terrific prosecutor. that aside, i think the department of justice can do both of these investigations with the men and women who have worked there for years and with integrity. and by the way, the special counsel regulations in place now, and they have been in place for more than 20 years don't afford the attorney general, right, the independence he may have been hoping for. he is still the ultimate decision maker with respect to any recommendation from either special counsel. it still stops on his desk, and so two primary reasons, willie, the department of justice can do

complex sensitive investigations with integrity, and the attorney general remains in charge as he would in any case, and so i don't see the appointments as necessary. i see the investigations as necessary. but not through the appointment of a special counsel. >> and just really quick before we get to republican reaction, chuck, what's the bar for appointing a special counsel, and is it criminality? >> well, that's a great question, mika. first the attorney general has to determine that a criminal investigation is warranted. and i believe a criminal investigation is warranted in both cases. doesn't mean necessarily that anyone will be prosecuted. but a criminal investigation is warranted. threshold number one, and then in these cases, both of them, the attorney general determined that there were extraordinary circumstances which required the appointment of a special counsel

in place of the normal mechanisms at the department of justice. i understand that the circumstances are unusual. again, i think the department of justice can handle these investigations in normal channels. >> so many republicans who were critical of the justice department investigating donald trump took great offense to it or said it wasn't fair. they're taking a very different tone when it comes to investigating joe biden. case in point. here is what senator lindsey graham said on fox news last august about trump potentially being prosecuted for taking classified documents to mar-a-lago and not giving them back. >> most republicans, including me, believe when it comes to trump, there is no law. it's all about getting him. there's a double standard when it comes to trump. and i'll say this, if there's a prosecution of donald trump for mishandling classified information after the clinton debacle which you presided over

and did a hell of a good job, there will be riots in the streets. compare that to the statement senator graham put out yesterday, he wrote in part, we need to fully understand what happened in both cases, involving president trump and biden and appointing a special counsel to review biden's handling of classified documents was in the best interest of the country. really? where did that come from? politically for democrats, the obvious immediate reaction here is ugh, are you serious? democrats were on such a role. republicans are going to pounce on this, ugh, this down plays the significance of the trump document scandal, right? not so much. i would suggest not so much at all. documents in private hands is something republicans down played constantly until the shoe was put on the other foot. unfortunately for them, the trump shoe that dropped was much

bigger and entirely different in the key issue of willful intent to obstruct. that's what it's going to come down to. many republicans aren't smart enough to figure that out, and they can't figure out that this week's developments actually make it more likely the doj moves on trump because of the political space it has been given by the garage where joe biden parks his corvette. yes, it was sloppy. in the end, what is most important here is intent, willful intelligent to obstruct. what we know is that the biden administration immediately handed over the documents, reached out to the national archives to say, hey, we've got something here. we all know that donald trump held off, even in the face of a subpoena. republicans are telling us this is truly an important national security issue. i would agree with that, i

just understand, jen palmieri, what changed? >> this is what they do. they don't have any fealty of being consistent in their observations of trump and biden. i do think you're right, if you have these two investigations, you're able to compare the way donald trump has handled this versus the way the biden white house has handled it. it does bring in stark relief the problems trump that has. i'm not a lawyer but why there seems to be -- why an indictment seems to be, you know, likely there as opposed to in the biden case. i have found myself adjacent to a lot of situations involving white houses and law enforcement and i think i can sort of decipher for people, you know, things they may be confused

about because i'm sure the press team at the white house would very much like to publicly say these are the exact number of documents we found. these are the days we found them, maybe give you a kind of description of the documents, put into the public domain as much as they could to give the proper documents, and people could make the arguments about trump versus biden. there's two reasons why you can't do that. and i have been frustrated as white house communications director, why you have to sit back and wait and not say anything. one is when you're in the middle of the story, you don't know how it ends. when you're in the middle of the investigation or even when the white house was conducting its own search, you don't know what you don't know. if you lay out what you're finding out, being transparent in realtime sounds like a great thing but it also can be construed as changing your story, right, particularly when the republicans are in charge of

the white house. excuse me, in charge of congress. in benghazi, officials were telling the public in realtime what they knew about the situation but as it turns out early information was not correct. and so that later on caused a lot of trouble with, you know, the benghazi committee, with the republicans that were, you know, doing that investigation. so you have to be very careful about what you -- you know, you can't let yourself have a good news cycle at the cost of a lot of trouble down the road and the second reason why the white house has to be careful about what they're putting in the public domain. and this is more important. you can't look like you're trying to litigate in the court of public opinion, materials, information that the justice department is going to consider in its own investigation. if the white house had a week ago dumped out a bunch of information and said, here's the documents, not here's actually the documents but here's the

information we can tell you about them, describe a number of them, it could look like they're trying to usurp the justice department and get the public on their side ahead of the department of justice's ability to do its own investigation. and that is a very dangerous thing to do, and when you're in this situation, you know, richard soberg, the white house counsel advising on oversight, very experienced guy. he knows you can't let a news cycle get ahead of what's in the best interest of your client and your relationship with the justice department. >> jonathan lemire, we put up a tweet a minute ago from our friend joyce vance who said whether he knows it or not, kevin mccarthy just conceded legitimacy of the investigation into donald trump on this matter by saying, yes, joe biden should be investigated for these classified documents. that's true of course. the hypocrisy, we have cataloged it all week. it does seem that president

biden and the white house needs to come up with a better explanation here, do they not, than it was locked up with my '67 sting ray. >> a lot of democrats didn't love the answer, for sure. rampant hypocrisy from republicans. though already similarities between the trump classified documents case and this one, they are very different. trump is significantly more in terms of volume of documents and a willful attempt to hold on to them and to get them back. they are limited to what they can say, but they haven't had a great answer this week, even earlier this week after the report of the first batch of documents were found. they were asked point-blank, have any more been discovered. they didn't have an answer, when others had, in fact, turned up. there is a sense here that some democrats told me yesterday that as soon as that first batch was

found in early november, you know, why did it take six, seven weeks to turn up the rest. how is that not job number one to turn up every piece of information and search everything related to the president. moreover, one senior democrat told me, why wasn't this done in august. as soon as classified documents turned up in mar-a-lago, why not take that extra step to be really careful and just make sure, hey, we don't have any either, and certainly no searches were done then, and that is a political problem as well. gene robinson, i want to get your take on this. some have said that in the long-term, appointment of a special counsel might be good for president biden in this matter because trump's got a special counsel, now we've got one too. this eliminates a perception of bias. if indeed this was a mistake, and they're exonerated, therefore the american people

will have faith in their conclusion. but short-term, it's messy, there's going to be some political pain for the white house, is it not? >> look, to say this is good for the biden white house is really really looking deep for that silver lining, and the very fact that there is now a biden's document case to counter pose with the trump's document case, it's not a good thing for in white house. and i asked the same questions in the column i wrote this morning, why would after the trump documents, after we learned about that and especially after the search of mar-a-lago, why wasn't there a thorough, minute microscopic search of any, you know, every place biden had been including the garage with the corvette to make sure there were no classified documents there. there's a separate issue, why

has it taken us so long to know they did find the first tranche of documents on november 2nd, and it's now january 13th. and we're, you know, just this week finding out about this. that said, there are huge and important differences between the two cases, and the biggest in my mind being the willful taking of documents and keeping of documents that trump did and also the obstruction of what looks to me like the clear obstruction of justice in his attempt to keep them and to hide them, and to mislead the archives and the justice department about what he had and when he had it. but i'm going to do something that i never ever ever do, which is disagree with chuck rosenberg, i think there's a good thing that there were

special counsels appointed in both of these cases because the extraordinary circumstance is that these are investigations of the president of the united states, the former president of the united states. there's almost a built in question about potential bias or political bias, certainly in this atmosphere of polarization, and so i think it's a good thing that we have these special counsels. i would also note that one huge difference here is that according to the reigning it opinion within the justice department, trump could be prosecuted but biden could not be because he's a sitting president, and i guess the justice department still believes you can't prosecute a sitting president. i don't believe there's anything to prosecute here, but that's what we heard when trump was being investigated when he was president. >> so i have a question for chuck to close this out, but jonathan lemire, can you just help me to make sure this is still unanswered, do we know why

somebody was in the penn biden center or in joe biden's garage and came across these documents? the reason i ask is the question being asked is why didn't the biden administration immediately do a full check upon the discovery of the documents in mar-a-lago of their own inventory, et cetera? maybe that's what was being done. i just don't know. like does anybody have any information on why somebody was able to discover these, why they were going through joe biden's documents? >> what we have been told so far, and again, the white house limited to what they can say, what we have been told so far, those found at the penn biden center were found by a former staffer who was cleaning out the office because the president doesn't use it anymore. it was routine. they were going through stuff, and found these. once they did, they did the right thing, the lawyers turned them over to the national archives, hey, you guys should

have these. people did start saying, okay, we need to look at all of his properties, and that's how the next batch turned up on december 20th and a single documents turned up this week. the question isn't why did it take so long, six or seven weeks to complete the search that eventually turned up the documents. >> former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg, what will these two cases come down to? i think jonathan lemire's explanation there is going to be important to this investigation. >> right. and there are absolutely differences in the cases in terms of responsiveness and volume, and they come down to intelligent. we keep talking about these two cases as if the only subjects on the planet are donald trump in the first one, and joe biden in the other but these aren't guys who cut the grass at the white house, right? i mean, they have people who do stuff for them, and so that's

why the fbi wants to talk to anybody who packed the boxes or moved the boxes or looked through the boxes after they moved. there may be subjects in these investigations it likely will turn on whether or not somebody acted intentionally. the best thing you can say about either case is that somebody was unbelievably sloppy, and that's not a good thing when you're talking about national security information. the investigations are absolutely warranted. they should both proceed at pace, but like i said earlier, i just trust the justice department to do it in its normal channels. eugene who i respect deeply and i will have to disagree on the best path forward but agree there should be a path forward. >> yep, but on this show we agree to disagree and in a civil way. former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg thank you very much for being on this morning with your insights and analysis. we appreciate it. and still ahead on "morning

joe," a former republican party leader calls donald trump a proven loser who is fading fast. this as house speaker kevin mccarthy appears to long beach the door open to expunging an impeachment on the former president. what is the hold he has on kev? we'll take a look at both of those new remarks. also this morning, republican congressman george santos weighs in on what it would take to get him to step down from office, and yesterday's inflation report was welcome news to the white house. steve rattner joins us ahead with charts and what the data means for the u.s. economy moving forward. plus, singer song writer, lisa marie presley who was the only child of elvis presley has died at the age of 54. we are remembering her life ahead on "morning joe." her lif ahead on "morning joe. on the subway app. like this one! 50% off?! that deal's so good we don't even need an

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richard sauber. we got sad news that lisa marie presley died at the age of 54. in a statement, presley's mother priscilla wrote in party, it's with a heavy heart i must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter lisa marie has left us. she was the most passionate, strong and loving woman i know. her daughter had been rushed to the hospital after she was found at home not breathing. emergency responders could not find a pulse. presley thanked supporters for their love and prayers and has asked for privacy. we'll have much more on her life coming up in the show. she was at the golden globe awards just a couple of nights before she died with austin butler, the actor who won playing her father elvis presley, and we should note she lost her son benjamin just two and a half years ago to suicide. we'll talk much more about her life coming up in just a bit.

>> it was really shocking when it first crossed. we'll have a full report and still a lot of questions as well. we're going to turn to the economy now, and there was some positive news that crossed yesterday morning about the rate of inflation, down slightly over the last month, and rising slower than a year ago. nbc news correspondent emilie ikeda has the details. >> reporter: soaring inflation is in retreat. december marking the first monthly decline in prices in nearly three years. down by a tenth of a percent from november. signs of relief hailed by president biden. >> it's coming down in america, month after month, giving families some real breathing room. >> reporter: compared to a year ago, the rate of inflation is 6 1/2%, a vast improvement from last summer's peak, driven by falling gas and used car prices. >> going from 9% to 6 1/2% is a big deal, and that's good for the economy. >> reporter: experts caution.

>> keep in mind that prices are still elevated. >> and burdensome for budgets, for the same items, the typically household she would out $371 more per month than 2021. key categories like rent and groceries hitting families where it hurts. eggs up a stagging 60%. are you feeling improvement? >> no, it's gotten worse if anything. >> reporter: this is the third grocery store beverly has searched for reasonable prices. a struggle grocery store owner bart has witnessed in maryland. he said prices are beginning to level off. >> we want customers to come in and shop regularly, and not be so concerned about every penny they're spending. >> joining us now, former treasury official and economic

analyst, steve rattner. inflation continues to fall, at the same time, you go to the grocery store, and you're not feeling that way. >> no, that's exactly right, mika. you have overall inflation falling and good news as you heard in that report down to a 6.5% year over year rate. you can see on this chart, the top line is what we call headline inflation. all items including food, energy, things like that, up 6 1/2%, and as you heard in the report, it peaked at 9% back in june. inside of that, you have good news from energy, you have good news from a bunch of services which we'll get to. food, unfortunately, is a problem. up 11% year over year, and that's why you heard the bad news about groceries. if you look at the solid line just below. that's what we call core inflation. it takes out food, takes out energy where we have had a lot of good news. it looks at the central parts of the economy, goods and services,

and that's what the fed looks at. there's also good news, up 5.7 over a year ago, down from 6.6% in september. it's a good report, and everything is moving in the right direction. this will hopefully take some pressure off the federal reserve. >> you mentioned federal serve, steve, let's go to your second chart. you say the metric has moderated. explain what this could mean for future interest rates. >> what the fed and jay powell focused on is core services, doctors, lawyers, travel, hotels, all of that stuff, they have a heavy component of labor costs, and we need to get labor costs down in order for inflation to moderate. the good news is powell's key metric as we call this here, jay powell has gone from a high of 10.2% last spring to 2.2% in the latest month on a year over year basis, and so that will hopefully make it easier for the

fed at its next meeting to impose a smaller interest rate, or 3/4 of a point it was doing last year. >> and that one certainly very closely watched meeting when that comes. steve, let's turn to your third chart now in the midst of the inflation. wages still growing, but the growth has slowed. explain that. >> yeah, as i indicated, in order to really get inflation down on a long-term basis, we need to moderate wage increases. that may seem counter intuitive. we want people to earn more money, but if they earn so much more that it creates inflation, obviously they end up worse off in the end anyway. we need for wage increases to come down, and here again, we have good news. they peaked at 7 1/2% rate of increase a year ago. it's down to about 4.2%. we need it to come down to the red dotted line or thereabouts, the 2.8% that existed before the pandemic and before everything

turned the economy upside down, and we have no history of that happening without unemployment rising. again, not something we would normally root for but we have a very hot labor market, and we need for it to get looser in order if the wage increases to come down. we have not seen that happen yet. and that may mean the fed does have to increase interest rates for a good while in order to get that to happen. >> a couple of days ago with the technical problem happened with the air traffic control system and the faa had to ground domestic departures for a couple of hours, you were the first one we called. new details about the faa system outage early this week. officials believe it may have been caused by a single contract employee. nbc news correspondent tom costello has those details. >> reporter: nbc news has learned that preliminary information suggests at least one, perhaps two contract employees may have caused the computer failure that grounded thousands of flights early

wednesday. government sources say the contractors were among the eight who had access to the faa's notam computer system and apparently edited a file causing it to be corrupted. it's not clear if it was out of malice or a case of human error. they learned what happened after reviewing computer log-in networks. the note was running on 30-year software. not due to be replaced for six years. transportation sec, pete buttigieg. >> a single person could put the faa in a position where they had to put the pause button on all domestic takeoffs. >> that's exactly what i'm asking faa to review and getting an explanation about. we need to make sure there are enough safeguards built into the system that this level of disruption can't happen because of an individual person's decision or action or mistake. >> failure led to cascading

delays and cancellations that affected hundreds of thousands of passengers. >> it is kind of alarming that the whole system was affected. >> the faa tweeted, operations are back to normal, no unusual delays or cancellations, while bad weather did lead to some delays. there were less than a third of wednesday's meltdown. can you ensure the american traveling public that we will not have a repeat of what happened on wednesday morning? >> that's exactly what i have directed and i will say that the steps have been taken to make sure the sequence of events that happened wednesday morning couldn't happen again. >> tom costello reporting there. steve, a couple of things jump out at you, first of all, the software hasn't been updated in 30 years, marking the beginning of bill clinton's term, and a single person may have been able to ground domestic flights for a couple of hours in this country. how did it happen, and how do we prevent it from happening again? >> we'll find out how it happened, and obviously the

faa's computer system should not be set up with a single point of failure. there's some broader points we should be aware of. i have been flying as it happens for 30 years at the age of that software. if you go into the cockpit of any new plane today, a tiny single engine plane, you'll see vastly different equipment, much more sophisticated, using gps technology, things like that in the cockpit. if you walk into an faa control tower today, you'll see pretty much what you would have seen 30 years ago. the whole system is incredibly antiquated. that gets back to washington. the faa's budget today on an inflation-adjusted basis is at or below what it was in 2004, given the huge increase in the number of people traveling, the number of planes in the air. the faa has been trying for ten years to put in what's called next gen air traffic control, which would not only prevent things like this from happening, but allow more planes to be in

the sky. cut traveler delays, fuel usage, cut costs, it can't get it done for a combination of budgetary reasons with congress and its own situation. number three, the faa has not had a permanent administrator since march. the biden administration nominated a new candidate, the senate doesn't love this person, and the whole thing has been stalled. i'm not suggesting those things directly affected this. the fact that there's a contract employee handling this may be a function of the budgetary situation. all of this comes back in a way to policy, the to the ability to have the government to execute, although i want to end on a positive note. the faa does keep us safe. we have had virtually no commercial air crashes in years and years and years, and i think we have to recognize that as well, along with the probes they have to deal with. >> well worth it, steve rattner, thank you very much for being on this morning on two fronts. coming up on "morning joe," remember the major meltdown with

southwest airlines during the holiday travel season? the company just got hit with a class action lawsuit from its own shareholders. more on that legal fight just ahead. and we're going to go through the first day in the trial for members of the proud boys and the charges they are facing in connection with the january 6th riot. we're back in just a moment. h t january 6th riot we're back in just a moment.

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he's fading fast. he's a proven loser. he cost us the senate again and again. i think we're moving past trump. i can't imagine him getting the

nomination frankly. i don't want him to get the nomination. i don't think he will as an analytical point. >> that was former speaker of the house paul ryan speaking with cnn yesterday when asked about former president donald trump's influence on the republican party. one member of the party trump does seem to have influence over is house speaker kevin mccarthy who yesterday said he is open to the possibility of clearing one or both of former president donald trump's impeachment charges. here's what he said when asked about it yesterday. >> when you find that the final information that the russia document was all a lie, when you watch what one went through, i would understand why members would want to bring that forward. i understand why an individual would want to do it, and we'll look at it. >> those comments came almost two years to the day that mccarthy placed respondent on then president trump for the rioters who stormed the capitol.

>> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's attack on congress by mob rioters. he should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. accept to share responsibility. quell the brewing unrest, and ensure president-elect biden is able to successfully begin his term. >> trump was first impeached in 2019 after he was recorded on a phone call threatening to withhold military aid to ukraine unless it investigated joe biden who was then a political rival, a potential political rival. he was impeached again in 2021 on charges of inciting the riots on january 6th. he was acquitted both times by republicans in the senate. jen, i mean blatant hypocrisy by

kevin mccarthy is boring because he does it all the time. it does lead to the question, donald trump, as paul ryan pointed out, as joe points out on the show so many times every day, trump has lost for them time and time and time again, he is a proven loser, as paul ryan said, so what hold would he have on kevin mccarthy to make the effort to agree with going through the process of expunging his impeachment charges? >> i mean, that is, i mean, when you raise the question in the opening, i did have to think that, they're the base of -- you know, there is a, you know, not small, but not a majority of the base of the republican party that is very attached to trump, that likes everything that kevin mccarthy is doing. that is not -- you know, it may

not be a majority of the party, it's not the way you saw them do this first week, repeal funding for, you know, irs enforcement to, you know, catch up on tax cheats. more restrictions on abortion. this forming of this weaponization of the federal government committee saying that you're going to try to undo the impeachment of trump. by the way, kevin mccarthy is often not great on details, tying the impeachment, trump's experiment of russia. that's not what it's about, as you talked about. not about the 2016 campaign. it's about what he did as president of the united states. all of these things are not popular with the american public. they are popular with some measure of the republican base, and, you know, i don't know what's up with kevin mccarthy and donald trump and, you know, what their relationship is about, and i think paul ryan may be right that, you know, obviously like it's time for the

republican party to move on. maybe the republicans are ready to do that writ large in the country, but not in that house chamber because the republican members that he's indebted to that got him the speakership, this is their agenda. it is what they want him to do. and here's what trump wants as well, but like why he's so caught in this is because it's what the, you know, the members of congress, the, you know, marjorie taylor greene, matt gaetz that put him over the top and got him this job. >> and gene robinson, jen is right, of course, that this congress has not moved on objectively. it's starting its new house with all of these investigations, for retribution in the way they think donald trump has been treated. paul ryan's statements, he's out of office and liberated to say things like donald trump is fading fast, that's true, he cost us the house in '18, the white house in '20, the senate again and again and again. all true. but then he says, i think we're

moving on, and i can't imagine him getting the nomination. i think most of us can still imagine donald trump getting the nomination to be the republican nominee. what do you make, how do you assess paul ryan's view of this? >> i can imagine him getting the nomination, and so i think paul ryan is wrong on that. i think he's being overly optimistic about the extent to which the republican party base, at least has moved on from donald trump. i don't really see evidence that it has. and i certainly see no evidence that the party has reached a point that it would inevitably have to reach with just to say no. we're done with you. to, you know, some action, some statement, some moment when it does move on from trump. we haven't seen that. we haven't seen anything like

that. as a matter of fact, you know, the matt gaetz, and marjorie taylor greene's and lauren boeberts of the world are not just feeling more empowered but in fact, empowered now. it's the maga base of the party that put kevin mccarthy over the top. that he had to pledge his first born to in order to become speaker, and that is calling at least a lot of the shots, and whatever kevin mccarthy in his heart of hearts would want to do, assuming he has a heart of hearts is almost irrelevant. he's got to do what his members want and so what his members want right now is really trumpy. >> certainly there's a final point here. dualing sound bites for mccarthy and ryan act as a preview for the next two years in the republican party. this tension as whether they adhere to trump or not, and certainly, you know, we saw some of his most faithful supporters

defy him in the house just in the last week, that's interesting. i think the key moment will be the next few weeks as other republicans who are rumored to be jumping in the 2024 race, do they do so? do they take their steps to declare the candidacies as we learn the trump campaign, after going dormant for months, looks like it is going to start up again. they just announced an event in south carolina in a few weeks. >> it will be interesting as these candidates emerge, and trump, you know, obviously will go after them, and if it will have the same impact as it did the first time around. a lot to watch ahead in terms of the republican campaigns getting up and running. eugene robinson and jen palmieri, thank you very much for being on this morning. have a great weekend. and still ahead, donald trump is planning to hit the campaign trail as lemire said for the first time since announcing his 2024 presidential bid. we'll have details about his expected stop in south carolina

later this month. plus, members of the house armed services committee, congressman seth moulton will join us to discuss the future of the u.s. military aid to ukraine as well as what's being planned for the new select committee to address threats posed by china. "morning joe" will be right back. ng joe" will be right back

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i will ensure that mr. hur receives all the resources he needs to conduct his work. as i have said before, i strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity. but under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. >> attorney general merrick garland brings in a special counsel for the biden investigation. we'll go through the hur's resume that makes him qualified for this kind of review. while there are special counsels looking into how president biden and former president trump handled classified materials,

one of our next guests says the issue of transparency is what separates the two. some might also say willful intent to obstruct. welcome back to "morning joe," it's friday, january 13th, do you guys get impacted friday the 13th, fearing a tree will fall on you. >> i didn't know it was friday the 13th, until you said that at the top of the hour. i'm a jason, not a freddy guy. >> i'm not a horror movie, i walked under a ladder and a black cat crossed my path. so far so good. >> i stay inside all day. i don't like it. let's just get to our top story. >> let's get through the next three hours together, mikament let's start with attorney general merrick garland

appointing a special counsel to investigate how classified documents ended up in the personal possession of president biden. kristen welker has the latest. >> reporter: with growing questions over whether president biden mishandled classified information including the revelation of a third discovery of classified material, attorney general merrick garland making a bomb shell announcement that he's appointing a special counsel to investigate. >> the extraordinary circumstances require the appointment of a special counsel. >> reporter: garland naming robert hur, a former federal prosecutor and u.s. attorney to see if laws were broken. garland saying classified documents from the obama administration were found by biden attorneys in two locations. mr. biden's private office he used after he left the vice presidency. the classified material was in his personal library at home and his garage a location seen briefly in this campaign video!

classified materials next to your corvette, what were you thinking? >> as i said earlier this week, and by the way, my corvette is in a locked garage. it's not like it's sitting out in the street. >> it was in a locked garage. >> as well as my corvette. as i said earlier this week, people know i take classified documents and classified material seriously. >> reporter: the attorney general has been under intense pressure from republicans to appoint a special counsel after he named one to investigate former president trump's handling of 100 classified documents seized during an fbi search of mar-a-lago. back then, mr. biden blasted mr. trump for having classified material at his home. >> how that could possibly happen, how anyone could be that irresponsible. >> reporter: two months later and a week before the election, garland says, classified documents, less than a dozen were found by biden's attorneys.

>> that office was not authorized for storage of classified documents. >> reporter: the doj was notified after the documents were handed over. on november 14th, garland appointed a u.s. attorney to review the matter, but then on december 20th, biden attorneys notified the u.s. attorney they had discovered more classified documents, this time inside the president's delaware garage, and president biden's attorneys saying they made a third discovery, another classified document at his delaware home but the white house did not tell the public about any of this until just this week, and only in response to media reports. republicans calling it a cover up. >> prior to an election you found a sitting president when he was vice president with top secret documents. why did they not even tell america that that transpires. >> reporter: the white house says it's confident the special counsel investigation will find the classified documents were inadvertently misplaced. let's bring in chief white

house correspondent peter baker washington bureau chief, susan page, andrew weissmann, the former general counsel for the fbi and lead prosecutor in the mueller special counsel's office, and pulitzer prize winning associate editor of the "washington post," bob woodward, his new audio book is entitled "the trump tapes" bob woodward's 20 interviews with donald trump. andrew weissmann, i want to begin with you about this question of the special counsel. we had your friend chuck rosenberg on in the last hour who said it was unnecessary, and pointed out he believes it's unnecessary in the case of the documents around donald trump. what's your view? was merrick garland right to appoint a special counsel around these joe biden documents? >> well, i think chuck is technically right that it's unnecessary, but that's a separate issue from whether it's something the attorney general had the discretion to do and could determine it was

warranted. i tend to think that merrick garland was right in both situations to appoint a special counsel. it gives the public as much as he can an assurance of fairness and balance, and here the department of justice in both matters, i think, is acting responsibly and independently. i think the real focus is on the white house. i think that we still have no evidence whatsoever that the current president did anything intentionally and willfully, let alone, as mika pointed out, obstructed justice. the two cases are likely to be quite different in the eyes of the two special counsel at the end of the day. >> and peter baker, we have been pointing that out this morning, and all week, just cataloging the differences in these two cases. chief among the differences being that the biden white house appears to have immediately handed these documents over to

the national archives when they were discovered rather than obstructing the way donald trump and his aides did. as you talk to your sources in and around the white house, first of all, why did it take so long for the public to learn about this. it was only a media report that discovered this, and how big of a problem do they view this to be? >> yeah, i think that's right. look, very different than the trump case. it does not appear to be a willful obstruction in the same way we have been talking about in mar-a-lago. that doesn't mean there aren't important questions. they discovered the first documents on november 2nd, they did not tell the public about it. they did not tell the public about it as kristen reported this week when they had no choice because the media was going to report. in fact, when the media reported, the white house confirmed but didn't mention they had found a second batch of documents. they acknowledged that when there was new media reporting. they'll tell you the reason why

is they didn't want to sort of put this out in piecemeal. they didn't want to be litigating this in the press while there was still a question about whether there would be a special counsel. they had hoped that perhaps the u.s. attorney considering this matter would not recommend a special counsel. they didn't want to make it a public issue. that raises a lot of questions. when you talk about transparency, two months went by, they didn't say anything. they knew it would have been damaging for democrats had it come out. >> former u.s. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general harry lipman writes for the los angeles times this "the special counsel appointment in the biden case tells us something new about merrick garland" writing quote, there's an ongoing role in what role -- could play in garland's decision, related to the justice

department's investigation of trump's january 6th actions and white house documents he repeatedly refused to turn over to the national archives. garland does not reside entirely in an empire realm of the law. he lives and works in washington where as he famously said during the outrageous stone walling of his nomination to the supreme court if you want a friend, get a dog. garland's decision to appoint a special counsel in the biden documents case displays a washingtonian situational awareness. not bad qualities for the head of the government agency but a new gloss on the character of the most important attorney general since watergate, and of course every time we mention watergate, we go straight to bob woodward. bob, personally knowing these two men, the former president

and the president, i believe that this will actually highlight what is so wrong about the mar-a-lago case, the willful attempt to obstruct the taking of the documents and placing them at mar-a-lago willfully. what is the bar for special counsel, and do you think the biden case met it? >> well, first of all, mika, there's a great deal to be humble about in this because we don't know all kinds of things. and leaping to conclusions, there's partial evidence. there's a very inexact chronology. all of this will get down to, though not necessarily legally but practically and politically, what was the intent? and i think it can be said now,

but that may turn out to be wrong, indeed, that biden's intent, he was not trying to conceal these things in a way. in fact, for all we know, it may turn out that there was a chinese spy who was washing and waxing his corvette and reading all of these documents for years or god knows what. and at the same time, there may be nothing like that. so the intent is really important. now, in the question of trump's intent, i've spent a lot of time over the years talking to him, done three books on him. and i think the business with the documents, frankly, is more of this trump's view of the presidency.

everything is mine. i do what i want. only i know, and it's this pattern of going his own way, whether that makes it illegal. whether there's some kind of active obstruction here. there is some evidence of that. so much, much is not known and i'm sorry to be so long on this, but the other thing is in our business, the media, it's worth spending a moment looking at ourselves, and we can create a furor by labeling it a furor, and you see this language of surprises, bomb shell here and there. this may turn out to be much smaller or it may turn out to be larger because what hovers

behind this is the nixon case and watergate and that sense of when these things start, we only see in a very fragmented way, the tip of the iceberg, so we're in for a long run. these things take a long time. >> bob is certainly right. there's a lot we don't know here, including who washes the president's corvette. susan, we should of course underscore that a special counsel investigating donald trump, it's not just about the classified documents at mar-a-lago, it's also january 6th and attempts to overturn the election, so that special counsel has a much broader purview than the one we're dealing with here. let's talk about politics here, susan. democrats on a real winning streak. they saw a successful midterms, a lot of legislation passed last year. the compare that to the republicans and the chaos in the house the last few days. president biden, poll numbers going up even over 50% in a survey out this week.

this does, though, people that i have talked to seem to slow momentum. what have you picked up in your conversations across washington this week. >> it was an unwelcome surprise for democrats who felt like inflation, to being able to deliver on infrastructure projects and everything. they hoped for the split screen moment we saw the other day, where president biden and maybe mitch mcconnell or other friendly senate republicans are delivering for the american people while house republicans are in chaos, that this makes it more difficult because it's impossible for the white house to argue that this is not a legitimate subject for investigation, that we need to answer all of those questions that bob woodward posed. we'll see where that takes us. if it muddies the kind of clear contrast that the white house had hoped to draw. and guaranteed, every president since richard nixon, except for barack obama has faced a special

counsel investigation. it is always a huge distraction, and i think the white house's failure to be fully transparent on some of these basic questions, when were things found and when did you announce them was a troubling sign for how they're going to handle this? >> tell us a little bit about robert hur, the special counsel appointed here, a respected figure in washington has worked in and outside the government. what do you view as his job here? how do you think he'll proceed and what are his credentials for the position? >> well, his credentials as a former federal prosecutor are pretty impeccable. he went to a series of topnotch ivy league schools. he worked for many years in the maryland u.s. attorney's office, rising to be the u.s. attorney. i got to know him a little bit when he worked for rod rosenstein as his number two. rod was the deputy attorney general who appointed special counsel mueller. and so he has, you know, in

terms of his background. i don't think anything, though, prepares you to be a special counsel. it is a pretty unique position, but the assignment he has is relatively straightforward. and so i actually don't think this is the kind of thing that will take long to interview people and make an assessment of intent, and so i think he has all of those skills. one thing that i think will make it very hard for republicans to attack him is he is a republican. he has worked in a variety of republican positions, and administrations. he was appointed as a u.s. attorney by president trump. and he somewhat famously and controversially when he was working for rod rosenstein, made an announcement for the department of justice. but he made it from the white house, not from the department of justice.

and talked about ongoing criminal cases. you know, that's something that definitely blurs a line that you certainly can see that merrick garland has made, you know, great strides in making sure there's a separation between the department of justice and the white house, so i think all of that makes it very very hard for republicans to say that this is somebody who is going to just, you know, throw in the towel for president biden. but he certainly has all of right credentials. >> many republicans who were critical of the justice department investigating donald trump are taking a very different tone when it comes to investigating joe biden on very similar issues. case in point, here's what senator lindsey graham said on fox news last august about trump potentially being prosecuted for taking classified documents to mar-a-lago. take a listen. >> most republicans, including me, believes when it comes to

trump, there is no law. it's all about getting him. there's a double standard when it comes to trump. and i'll say this. if there's a prosecution of donald trump for mishandling classified information after the clinton debacle which you presided over and did a hell of a good job, there will be riots in the streets. >> wonderful. compare that statement, bob woodward, to the one graham put out yesterday who wrote in part, quote, we need to fully understand what happened in both cases involving president trump and biden and that appointing a special counsel to review biden's handling of classified documents was in the best interest of the country. quite a change, bob woodward, and of course absolutely no recognition of the difference between the two cases, meaning donald trump sat there while a subpoena was coming his way and held on to the documents

cloistered in his mar-a-lago office and beach club in florida, wouldn't give them back. and as far as we know, and we have a lot of unanswered questions. it appears the biden administration discovered some documents and then began to do a thorough review, always handing over whatever they found to the national archives. >> i mean, there's a substantial and may turn out to be controlling difference here, but one of the things we got to address here and it goes down many roads, and that is what's a classified document? there are classified documents that are really serious. i could sit here a long time talking about some of the most important, sensitive national security matters are not unclassified documents but in

notes that people have that literally do not have the classification. when i -- this is in a way, horrifying. when i was 22 years old, new in the united states navy, i had classification authority. i could say, oh, this message, this document is classified. literally hundreds of thousands of people have that capacity, so are the documents really sensitive? do they disclose sources and methods or is it just an analysis? we don't know. and again, this is the problem of jumping to conclusions one way or the other, and i think it's really important. this is going to go on. if you look at watergate, it

went on for 27 months. over two years from the beginning until nixon's resignation. the mueller investigation i think went on 1.2 centuries, went on for years. again, go back and look at not just what happened in some of these investigations, but our own coverage of it. sometimes it was good, sometimes it was sadly lacking. >> all right. "the washington post's" bob woodward, and nbc news legal analyst, andrew weissmann, thank you very much for your analysis this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe." what republican congressman george santos is saying about the growing calls for him to step down, and what it would take for him to actually do it. he did put out a number. plus, the latest from the war in ukraine. officials in kyiv say a new and

possibly large-scale russian strike is not a matter of if but when. and a look at the morning papers, including a new investigation into chicago mayor lori lightfoot's reelection campaign. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. watching "" we'll be right back.

♪ this feels so right... ♪ adt systems now feature google products like the nest cam with floodlight, with intelligent alerts when a person or familiar face is detected. sam. sophie's not here tonight. so you have a home with no worries. brought to you by adt. mr. zimmerman, name one of your favorite family traditions? >> oh, my goodness. absolutely. new year's eve, my nephews and i, my brother and sister-in-law get together in our sweats, watch some sort of stupid

comical holiday movie, and eat all the stuff we shouldn't eat. haagen-dazs. >> mr. santos, your favorite family tradition. >> ours is just family time. we have always been, you know, it doesn't matter if it's a tuesday night or a sunday night or if it's christmas, every moment we can get together that's kind of a down time, it's sweat pants, pints of haagen-dazs all over the place. >> you agree on something. >> it's the best ice cream in the world. i'm not organizing. >> that's george santos in october, effectively copying his opponent's answer during a conversation, right down to the type of clothing, the brand of ice cream, when asked about family traditions during a debate on local television. perhaps, mika, that should have been one of the first warnings that something was up here. >> i just, again, we have more to report on this. but how did this not get -- how

did he beat someone, number one? and how did this not get ferreted out whether it's the reporters on his opponent? he was lying every day of his life. >> yeah, well, there was one newspaper, again, "the north shore leader" in long island, they wrote this entire expose and nobody listened. three more republicans said santos cannot govern effectively and should leave congress after the nassau county republican party on long island and several new york congressmen called for santos' resignation earlier this week. despite the pressure, santos remains defiant saying the backlash will not make him resign, and he only will step down if the voters call for that. >> i came here to serve the people, not politicians and party leaders and i'm going to do just that, and i have been doing just that throughout this entire first two weeks, whether it was voting for the speaker or last week, when we have been working on legislation in my

office, so, you know, i wish well all of their opinions but i was elected by 142,000 people. until those same 142,000 people tell me they don't want me, we'll find out in two years. >> that's george santos with congressman matt gaetz, busy working for his district by filling in for steve bannon on his podcast. kevin mccarthy said he considers santos a member of the caucus, and will let the ethics committee play out. >> he has a long way to go to earn trust. the one thing i know, you apply the constitution equal to all americans. the voters of his district have elected him. he is seated. he is part of the republican conference. there are conference with it so he will go before ethics. if anything is found to be wrong, he will be held accountable, exactly as anybody else in this body would be. that is the fair way to handle anything going that's how i'll deal with any single issue that ever comes forward.

>> so susan page, speaker mccarthy is going to stand by, it appears, stand by george santos for now, and let this process play out. but there are a growing number of republicans who want him out, including the nassau county republicans, the area where he was elected, and there are a number of democrats already vying for, lining up for potential special election because his district is a swing district, hoping they can flip it back toward the democrats. >> you know, democrats ran what was clearly an incompetent campaign against him last time failing to do the fundamental research on your opponent that would have found out some of those lies. presumably they would not repeat the error in a special election or if he survives for two years in the next election. very good prospect. that's a seat that would flip, which is exactly why kevin mccarthy is unwilling to throw him overboard, at least quite yet. when you have 222 republicans in your caucus in your majority, you count every one of them, and

that is one he would likely lose if santos resigns. >> peter baker, i'm guessing that's not a product placement name check that haagen-dazs is not thrilled about. kevin mccarthy is not moving on george santos until there's an ethics investigation. tell us what that would look like, who would be on that committee, what that process would be, and how long might that take, are they trying to run the clock out until he's up for reelection again? >> the ethics process in congress is broken. it's been a while that congress has demonstrated its capable of polices itself. it's become one more partisan gridlock every time it comes ultimate up. remember, they got this committee as evenly stacked, and of course if you're a republican, you're not going to toss them overboard. if you're kevin mccarthy, you can only afford to lose four republicans on any vote. tossing santos overboard is one

quarter of your margin. there's no obvious incentive to do that. this is something incompatible as our honor as a party. there's not a lot of history of that in recent times. i think that the ethics process in the congress is broken and the most powerful way the ethics have been enforced in recent years in congress is through, you know, pressure on people who are, you know, wayward to resign, and we'll see whether that eventually does affect congressman santos. he's telling us right now, he's planning to stick it out for two years. he's likely to be able to do that. >> that's amazing, peter baker and susan page, thank you both very much for being on. have a great weekend. it's time to take a quick look at the morning papers. in illinois, the ”chicago tribune” reports on a new investigation into the mayor's reelection campaign. lori lightfoot's staffers sent an e-mail offering chicago public schools students extra credit if they volunteered to work for her campaign.

the mayor called the e-mail a mistake. now, the district's inspector general is looking into the incident. "the sun news" leads with former president donald trump's expected campaign visit to south carolina. this will be his first 2024 presidential campaign event since he announced his candidacy in november. it will be held in columbia later this month. an exact date or venue has not yet been announced. and "the capitol" reports maryland hospitals are strained and reaching capacity, 92% of medical, surgical, and intensive care beds are occupied statewide, as patients are battling, covid, rsv, and the flu. officials say the situation isn't an emergency like it was this time last year, but they fear it could get worse because of a new, highly contagious strain of covid that is on the

rise. and in new jersey, "the courier news," has a front page feature on lawmakers considering offering incentives to businesses that allow their staff to work from home. a broad outline explains the state would offer tax breaks to companies that buy satellite offices in new jersey to serve as occasional work spaces. this way employers would be considered new jersey workers, instead of the state where the company is based. interesting. and coming up for all the political division in this country, one thing americans can agree on is being an nfl fan. we have new polling on the league's popularity ahead of the playoffs. and before we go to break, "morning joe" reporter daniela pierre bravo has a look at some of the pieces featured on know your value right now. daniela? >> good morning, we have a lot going on on "know your value."

. first mika, there's a piece you wrote about your hair. losing a part of your physical identity in the middle of a stressful time. you discuss how you're recovering and is really a must read. one of my favorite pieces on the site. i have a piece on latina entrepreneurs and the gap that exists in the venture capital space. less than 2% of venture capital dollars go to latina founded companies. in my piece, i explore why the gap exists and what can be done to close it. and of course there's a new 50 over 50 asia list that's out this week. we are highlighting incredible women from ceos to fashion designers, to scientists, all who are disrupting and advancing their industries after the age of 50. the global 50 over 50 asia list is up on knowyourvalue.com right now. many of these women will be joining us at the forbes 30/50

summit in abu dhabi. so far we have hillary clinton, gloria stein ham, malala and so many more. if you want to know more about the event go to knowyourvalue.com. mika. >> thank you, and we will be back with much more "morning joe." we will be back with much more "morning joe. in two seconds, eric will realize they're gonna need more space... gotta sell the house. oh...open houses. or, skip the hassles and sell with confidence to opendoor. wow. request a cash offer at opendoor.com

7:40 in the morning at the white house on a friday morning. it is a big nfl weekend, not in washington, sorry, commanders fans, but not too far. baltimore ravens quarterback, lamar jackson will not play in this weekend's afc wild card match up against the cincinnati bengals. the star quarterback posted an update about his injury last night on twitter explaining his left knee remains unstable in

his words and that the injury is more serious than trainers and doctors originally believed. jackson added quote, i wish i could be out there with my guys more than anything, but i can't give 100 of myself to my guys. they will start tyler huntley or anthony brown against the bengals. sunday afternoon, the miami dolphins will be missing their star quarterback and primary backup in buffalo against the bills. not good. tomorrow night, the jacksonville jaguars set to host the los angeles chargers on nbc. the afc's top seeded kansas city chiefs have a first round bye. the 49ers and seattle seahawks kick off the nfl's wild card weekend in san francisco tomorrow afternoon, and on sunday, the minnesota vikings host the upstart new york giants and the dallas cowboys will visit tampa bay and the buccaneers on monday night. philadelphia eagles have a bye as the top team in the

conference. so, jonathan lemire, a couple of good games. a couple lopsided with lamar jackson out. which are your ones to watch this weekend? >> you and i have been bemoaning, it's a suspect slate of games in part because of those injuries. you've got a couple of good ones, jacksonville, chargers, tomorrow night should be pretty good. teams that have been out of the national spotlight for a while, and then two nfc games that are the best of the week. your new york giants, a decent chance to win an upset on the road to minnesota. a team that has played a lot of close games, beaten by tougher competition this year, and then of course, monday night, the game of the round, cowboys, buccaneers, and yes, that tampa bay buccaneer team flawed, they finished under .500. are you going to bet against tom brady in january?

i certainly will never do that. >> that's it. for everything he has been through, missing camp and the things in his personal life and the crypto and all of that, this is his moment. he lives for that game on monday night. they're underdogs at home, the bucs are, against the cowboys. nobody is betting money against tom brady. it's been a big season in terms of numbers and popularity. let's bring in political contributor, john delavope, good to see you, how popular does the nfl remain? >> extremely popular. in a time when everything in america is political, when we have a hard time agreeing on priorities or whether there should be a special prosecutor, we find that the nfl is extremely popular. 2/3 of all americans, 32%, a third would call themselves die hard fans of the nfl. 67% of democrats, 71% of republicans call themselves die hard or casual fans. this is one of the truly moments

this weekend when all americans can come together and have something in common, which i think is clearly replaced baseball as our national pastime, and that's a good thing. >> your other chart, john, says, do you support or oppose congress regulating player health and safety. that's one that gets at some of the problems, the cte, what we have seen around ta, that's something that concerns die hard nfl fans. >> exactly. because there's so much passion for the support, i think what we have seen, especially the last week is americans really trying to protect players across the league, including the fact that if the nfl isn't doing its job, 66% as you can see, 2/3 of all americans, and a higher number of die hard fans say congress ought to intervene to make sure that basically our players and family members are taken care

of. it's their responsibility to oversee this, if the nfl doesn't do it properly. >> so, john, you've got a polling question here, you're asking folks whether they think the nfl is doing a good job protecting player health, and we see here 56% say excellent or good, and i'll admit, that surprised me a little bit, the tua concussion story, a significant story line all yearlong. no doubt in recent years they have tweaked some of the rules, the helmets are a little bit better. it's safer than it was, but it's still a brutally violent game, and this was underscored ten days ago with that hit, a routine hit, but a tackle that left damar hamlin in cardiac arrest. >> i was surprised also. this survey was conducted the weekend that everyone heard the great news that damar hamlin was on his way out of the hospital to make hopefully a full recovery. we have to appreciate that. as i reflected on that, the nfl

has done a good job communicating the rule changes that happen in effect. and what we found is that basically 85 or 90% believe the nfl is making some progress, that there's more progress to go, but overall, you could see on a 2-1 margin, they think they're doing an excellent or good job. look at that relative to the approval ratings of members of congress or elected officials. so, again, this is not to be taken for granted, i think, jonathan. what the nfl needs to do is recognize that they're in a pretty good position now, but they need to continue to invest and make sure that they clean up a situation around tua, and obviously continue to protect the health and safety of players, especially one of the things in this survey, younger americans are more suspect, less likely to be a die hard fan, more suspect and concerned about health and safety, more willing

for congress to intervene if necessary. >> we got an eye popping reminder of how popular the nfl is even through all of this. how enduring it is. on thanksgiving day, 42 million people watched the cowboys play the giants. that was an all time record if the -- for the nfl in a regular season game in the era of fractured viewing. thank you as always, we appreciate it, good to see you. coming up next, we remember the life of lisa marie presley, elvis's only child who died yesterday after going into cardiac arrest at her home in california. some new information this morning when we come right back. morning when we come right back. if i hadn't seen it in person, i wouldn't have believed it. eating is believing steph. the subway series. try subway's tastiest menu upgrade yet.

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52 past the hour. we learned last night of the death of lisa marie presley, the only child of icon elvis presley and his wife priscilla. she was rushed to the hospital yesterday and died hours later. nbc news correspondent erin mclaughlin has more.

>> reporter: lisa marie presley, the sole daughter of elvis presley passed away after a cardiac arrest. a representative confirming the passing in a statement saying they are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved lisa marie. medics were able to find a pulse and transported her by ambulance to the hospital where she later died. two days earlier at the golden globes honoring the memory of her dad and cheering on butler who thanked them in the acceptance speech. >> i love you forever. >> reporter: the shoutout bringing presley to tears. presley appearing to be unsteady in an interview on the red carpet. >> i'm going to grab your arm. >> yeah. >> reporter: she marked what would have been elvis' 88th

birthday. >> i think he would be proud. i think this year has been an incredible year. the movie was incredible and very proud of it. >> reporter: fans and friends reacting to the loss. john travolta saying i'm so sorry. lisa marie and artist in her own right. ♪♪ was born in 1968 to her mom pris lil sa and her father elvis. his unthymely death in 1977 when she was just 9 a defining moment that cast a long shadow over her entire life. a life marked by tragedy and addiction that often played out in the public eye. she had four marriages most famously to michael jackson. she was also briefly married to niklas cage. before having four children with

her two other husbands. she made multiple appearances on "today" including back in 2003. in the past presley was vocal about the struggles including the battle with addiction. in 2018 she told our jenna bush hager -- >> i hit bottom. below bottom. it's pretty miraculous i have come this far. >> reporter: saying she was destroyed by the 2020 suicide of her 27-year-old son benjamin. last august to mark national grief awareness day she penned an emotional essay writing it's a real choice to keep going. one that i have to make every single day and challenging to say the least but i keep going for my girls. >> nbc's erin mclaughlin with that report. she had so many struggles and pushed through so much and will

be questions about how she died seamingly so suddenly and also if there's a relation to how she seemed at the golden globes a little unsteady. >> yeah. she was. the questions will be investigated and answered and she was there 48 hours or less before the death looking up at austin butler accepting the award for playing her father. her life was complicated. she was effectively a royal baby when she was born. >> he was the king! >> news all over the world when she was born to pris lil la. growing up and then at 9 years old the heiress to the estate and managing graceland. just a sad story and the death

of her son so heart breaking and tragic to her. >> horrible. coming up, the latest on the fighting in ukraine bracing for a new russian offensive. plus, a member of the house armed services committee seth moulton is the guest and an assault style weapons are banned in illinois. we'll be joined by that state's democratic governor jb pritzker. "morning joe" will be right back. when you're through with powering through, it's time for theraflu hot liquid medicine. powerful relief so you can restore and recover.

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it is the third hour of "morning joe" and this morning a pressure campaign from republicans seems to pay off. were they wrong about the trump documents. attorney general garland appoints a special counsel to

investigate how classified documents from the obama administration ended up at the home and personal office of president biden. and among the questions still unanswered, why did it take two months to disclose the discoveries? plus, the latest from ukraine where there's dispute over control of an eastern city. a major offensive could be on the horizon. welcome back the "morning joe." it is friday the 13th. willie, since you are okay with friday the 13th and no problem with it, i will line up the pens exactly like this, you take the first story. >> now that i know this about you it is amazing you came to work today. thank you. >> thanks. absolutely. >> let's begin now with that decision by attorney general garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate president biden's handling of classified

material in the wake of revelations about documents from the obama administration at the president's delaware home. peter alexander has the latest. >> reporter: republicans this week have been pressuring the attorney general to appoint a special counsel after he named one to investigate mr. trump's handling of classified documents. >> the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. >> reporter: garland naming robert hur, a former u.s. attorney in maryland appointed by then-president trump to head up the inquiry. garland also detailing the expanding timeline of discoveries. on november 2nd the president's personal lawyers found fewer than a dozen classified documents at a former office in washington just six days before the midterm elections. and then on december 20th, they found another batch inside the garage of mr. biden's wilmington, delaware, home. a location we got a glimpse of in this campaign video where the president keeps his corvette.

>> my corvette is in a locked garage, okay? it's not like they are sitting out on the street. people know i take classified documents and classified materials seriously. >> reporter: it wasn't until two months later on january 9th that the discovery of the first batch of documents became public following media reports. and just two days ago another classified document was found in a room adjacent to the garage. garland revealing that the justice department was notified of that yesterday. overnight, nbc news learning one of the documents found at mr. biden's former office was marked with the highest classification in government. what's called top secret sci. according to a senior u.s. official and another person familiar with the matter. last fall president biden slammed mr. trump for storing hundreds of classified materials at his mar-a-lago estate. >> how that could possibly happen, how anyone could be that irresponsible. >> reporter: mr. trump last night again claiming that he had

the right as a former president to retain classified documents, even though there is no evidence any of them had been properly declassified. >> when biden is admonishing me for documents that i'm allowed to have as president, i am allowed to have, we were allowed to take this, many presidents took things with them. >> he was not allowed to take them. peter alexander reporting there. let's bring in nbc news national security annual igs jeremy bash and simone townsend. she was chief spokesperson for vice president kamala harris. jeremy, let me start with you, given the understanding of classification of documents, what do you take of what we have heard and seen that there wasn't one batch in an office but a second set at the home in

delaware? >> if we were to call the intelligence community right now and say, hey look, we accidentally took classified material home and it is in the house they would say put it in the double wrapped envelope and get it back to us. looking at the training manuals there's a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. the right way is return the documents right away. the wrong way is exactly what special counsel jack smith is investigating what the trump team did in mar-a-lago which is first to deny and then turn over 15 boxes. more than 300 documents found in mar-a-lago after a grand jury subpoena, after the trump counsel certified in writing that there was no documents there. trump alleged that the fbi planted the information there. this is a contrast of two

special counsels and the biden administration will welcome it. there's a right and wrong way to do this. they will analyze the differing fact patterns. >> yeah. obviously intent in the end and intent to obstruct is what it comes down to. in the latest editorial is a sharp contrast to the lawless predecessor, "the st. louis post-dispatch" writes the probe of the biden documents is fully justified but a look at the facts failed to justify any conservative schadenfreude over biden's embarrassment. the contrast with his lawless predecessor is striking.

trump instead of cooperating with the investigation has continued to allege he was the victim of an unprovoked raid. he and the republican enablers still believe as ex-president he is above the law. the fact that the current president is making no such claim speaks volumes about both of them and the respective parties. simone, i'm curious how you think the white house is doing in their response. i was watching biden answering questions. the president's spokesperson answering questions. are they hitting it right? would you suggest they focus on the differences between the cases and the intent issue? >> when the people in political communications know when you are explaining it is not in the favor. what the biden white house has done is say, look, this is what

happened. we have -- we are cooperating with the review from the justice department and we will not be giving additional details and let the review play out. that is the normal political times that is absolutely the right thing to do. i think the concern from a lot of allies if you will of the white house, is that the voters and american people might not understand the nuisance. people ask how could this happen? not understanding that when then vice president biden left office he was in ukraine three days before. didn't have a staff secretary. the arbiter of documents. it is easy to understand how documents could have been packed up and not seen or heard from until someone went through the files. i think the lack of nuance here

and details are extremely important. the white house is doing what they can. it is incumbent upon the allies of the white house. my question is where there's the dnc in this while the president and the press secretary doing what they are supposed to do. the political arms and defenders of the president should be more forcefully attacking the issue and making sure the nuances are there. >> she makes a good point there. there's a perception, a murkiness in place that might be hard for some in the public to discern. jeremy, i think the number one question i have received in the last 48 hours or so. now that there's this matter with president biden and gets a

special counsel, how is that going to impact a possible criminal charge for donald trump and his mishandling of classified documents? these are different cases. they would be considered separately in a vacuum but this is washington. what do you think? >> it is fact dependent. prosecutors make decisions with criminal charges on the facts of the case. we have an unfolding investigation by jack smith and if he says this fact pattern in mar-a-lago so egregious, they lied. they hid documents. there were more than 300. we have to hold him accountable and make a recommendation to attorney general garland and robert hur says this is a comingling case and inadvertent, no intent to lie.

there's no criminal conduct here. then there's a difficult decision. the two cases really shouldn't pollute the judgment of the other and they're not similar based on the facts we know now. the prediction is that garland analyzes them separately and he should. >> simone, i'm curious your first reaction hearing this news. what does this mean for the democrats? do you think it will impact the agenda or anything moving forward? what is the suggestion? >> like most people hearing this, oh my goodness. not good for 1600 pennsylvania avenue. this is a rough day. i tweeted about this. i think that when we first heard of the story there's colleagues in the political press thinking

there's a scandal-esque meeting with some folks at the white house and the president to decide whether or not to tell the press about the documents. knowing what i know what more likely happened is a small group of people knew and thinking about how to quickly return the documents. let's get them to where they need to be. we'll let the chips fall where they may and if there's a review we'll participate in the review. not necessarily, not any malice intent if you will. i think the reality is that this is a political headache if you will for the white house and for democrats in general but they should not allow this to deter the agenda. this is not the same thing as donald trump and mar-a-lago. the national archives knew there were 13 boxes missing and then spent months haggling to get them back. he lied about what he had. they are not in the same

stratosphere and a number of things that democrats need to get done. there is work that has been done. legislation that's passed and now needs to be implemented and keeping the eye on the ball is extremely important. i think that's what you have seen the white house doing. that's where the allies come into play and other folks need to step up. >> thank you very much. we'll be watching "simone" weekends on msnbc and on peacock. thank you. >> thanks. >> willie? >> let's bring in senator seth moulton. congressman, thank you for being with us this morning. want to talk foreign policy in a moment but as someone who takes national security seriously how concerned are you about the classified documents in the private possession of joe biden? >> it is a concern.

we have to be careful with classified information. it is important if you're a member of congress and if you are the vice president or president of the united states. what i learned about marine training is you can make a mistake, probably let you try again next day, fail a test, but you lie about anything you're gone that afternoon. the point is that whether you're a trash collector or the president of the united states people make mistakes but the test of character is how you handle the mistakes and there's a contrast between donald trump and the way that joe biden is handling this situation. >> of course there is. we laid that out for days now. that raises the question how you view the republican colleagues and the way they treat not only this but the biden administration as they come in promising to investigate the

irs, the fbi, the united states military in which you served. what do you make of the posture of the republican leadership so far? >> obviously they're hypocrites considering the posture compared to their leader donald trump but fundamentally seems to be a party of lawlessness. first legislative priority, the first bill they passed to enable tax cheats. they say it's good for small businesses and families but only families not paying the taxes. it is great for a mob family. you have an awesome ally in the republican party. they stand up for the january 6 insurrectionists. they're standing up for santos. for santos who is probably the biggest con man that congress has ever seen.

they're standing up for the russians and vladimir putin by trading votes for ukraine aid and useful to see who they don't stand up for which is law enforcement. they go after the fbi doing the job at mar-a-lago. not standing up for women who want to exercise the basic rights to make decisions about health care. not standing up for troops working hard to support the ukrainians in the fight for freedom so this is a party of lawlessness right now and embodied by their leadership. >> let's talk about that fight for freedom in ukraine, congressman. about 11 months old. ukrainian officials warning of a new possibly large scale offensive by russia. nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley has some details now from kyiv. >> reporter: the battle in ukraine's east laid waste to the

city of solidare. this war is waiting for a game changer and top ukrainian officialing warning russia is planning one. the current masters of russia will throw everything they have left to ton the tide of the war ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy warned last week. some believe russia could make a move on kyiv from belarus. troops seen training just across ukraine's northern border. anton is tracking the moves for months. we see russians regularly making fortifications and may be expecting an offensive from us.

vladimir putin visiting belarus. glad handed with the belarus president. on the first day of the war in february ukraine destroyed this bridge forcing troops to take the long way to the capital and since russia's first failed attack on kyiv ukraine is preparing for a second. this is in anticipation of a second offense? russian troops in this area of responsibility and now we prepare for the scenarios that may come. this trench is unused. you can see it's all fresh timber waiting for a fresh offensive. the threat could come from anywhere. in kyiv i was told they expect an offensive to target the eerp part of ukraine. where and when? we have focused on the reserves and groupings of troops in the

occupied territories. in the three main directions, donbas, car can i have and zaporizhzhia. they believe the foot is about to drop. matt bradley, nbc news, kyiv, ukraine. >> congressman, republican colleagues have been skeptical of not necessarily always supporting ukraine but how much money the united states taxpayers have given to ukraine in support of this effort. why do you think it's important to continue? >> because this is a long-term investment in our own national security. one lesson to learn from vladimir putin is he is not going to stop after georgia, not going to stop after crimea. he will keep going and if he goes after ukraine it could well be into a nato ally and american troops are in the fight and american lives will be lost.

we invest good money in ukraine but there's a great return on that investment saving money in national security in the long term. >> seth moulton of massachusetts, thank you for you time this morning. >> good to see you. jeremy bash, what's the state of the war as you see it right now? next month it will be a full year since russia invaded ukraine. ukrainians showed off courage to the world, fighting spirit to the world. united states continued to support them. president zelenskyy beamed into the golden globes to try to keep americans engaged with the war and support going. where is the war? do you think the united states will continue to support it? >> yeah. there are really two wars going on. the first is ground war in the east and you have seen some

images from matt bradley's reporting. then there's the air war with primarily missiles and drones from the iranians. the russians have used about 90% of the stock of available drones and waiting on a shipment of 250 drones and the ukrainians are utilizing weapons and equipment platforms that the united states and the west given ukrainians to defend the air space and attack russian elements. i think ukraine is winning. this is a pivotal moment. russia is deprived of the objectives in the war. will the united states and the west provide ukraine with the weapons it needs? i think the biden administration is squarely intending to do that. there's an open question whether or not the congress will back the biden administration. a reason why we front loaded billions of dollars to ukraine

at the end of the fiscal year. i think this is a critically important moment to deliver putin a blow here approaching the one-year. >> jeremy bash, thank you very much for being on this morning. house speaker kevin mccarthy appears to leave the door open to expunging an impeachment of former president trump. we'll show you the new comments on that. in the fourth hour we'll be joined by bryan cranston and rosie perez with a look at "your honor." before going to break, willie, what is planned for "sunday today"? >> my guest on nbc is "emily in paris" herself lily collins at season three of that sensational show that's set netflix records in the first couple of seasons the third season out a few weeks

ago talking about that role but also growing the daughter of a rock star phil collins and getting the film debut with sandra bullock in "the blind side." this sunday over on nbc on "sunday today." we are coming right back on "morning joe."

department of justice was immediately -- as was done the department of justice was immediately notified and the lawyers arranged for the department of justice to take possession of the document. so we're going to see all this unfold. i'm confident -- >> politically for democrats the obvious immediate reaction here is ugh. are you serious? democrats on such a roll. republicans are now going to pounce on this. ugh. this down plays the significance

of the trump document scandal, right? i would suggest not so much why not so much at all. classified documents in private hands is something republicans downplayed until the shoe was placed on the other foot and unfortunately for them the trump shoe that dropped is much bigger and entirely different in the key issue of willful intent to obstruct. many republicans just aren't smart enough to figure that out and figure out the developments more likely that the doj moves on trump with the space given. yes, it was sloppy. in the end what is most important here is intent. willful intent to obstruct. what we know is that the biden

administration immediately handed over the documents. reached out to the national archives and we know that donald trump held off in the face of a subpoena. republicans are now telling us that this is truly an important national security issue. i would agree but i want to understand. jen, what changed? >> this is what they do. they don't need to have any sort of feelty to be consistent in the observations of trump versus biden but i think you're right that ultimately what the -- if you have the two investigations, you can compare the way donald trump handled this versus the biden white house. it does bring into stark relief the problems that trump has, why

a indictment seems to be likely there as opposed to in the biden case. as you know i have found myself adjacent to situations of white houses and law enforcement and i can decipher for people things that they might be confused about because i'm sure the press team at the white house would like to publicly say these are the exact number of documents we found and put it in the public domain as much as they could for proper context to make judgments about trump versus biden here but there's two big reasons why you can't. i have been frustrated as white house communications director why you have to wait and not say anything. one is because in the middle of the story you don't know how it

ends. when the white house conducting a search you don't know what you don't know and if you lay out what you're finding out in realtime sounds like a great thing but it also can be construed as changing the story. right? particularly when the republicans are in charge of congress but a good example is benghazi. benghazi rightfully so officials telling the public what they knew in realtime but as it turns out early information was not correct and caused a lot of trouble with the benghazi committee and the republicans doing that investigation. you can't let yours have a good news cycle at the cost of trouble down the road. the second reason why the white house has to be careful what

they put in it public domain is you can't look like you try to litigate in the court of public opinion materials, information the justice department will consider in the investigation. if the white house dumped out information. here's what we can tell you about them, number of them it could look like they try to usurp the justice department to get the public on the side ahead of the justice department's ability to do an investigation and that is a dangerous thing to do and in this situation the white house counsel that's advising them on oversight very experienced guy knows you can't let a good -- worry about a good news cycle ahead of the best interest out client a ten relationship with the justice department. coming up on "morning joe"

-- >> today i couldn't be prouder to say we got it done. >> that is the governor of illinois before signing into law a sweeping bill to ban assault style weapons. governor pritzker joins the conversation straight ahead on "morning joe."

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we're going to turn to the economy and there was some positive new that is crossed yesterday morning about the rate of inflation down slightly over the last month and rising slower than a year ago. nbc news correspondent emilie ikeda has the details. >> reporter: december the first monthly decline in prices in

nearly three years down by 0.1% from november. signs of relief hailed by president biden. >> coming down in america month after month giving breathing room. >> reporter: compared to a year ago the rate is 6.5%. the vast improvement from the summer's peak driven by gas and used car prices. >> 9% to 6.5% is a big deal and that's good for the economy. >> reporter: experts caution -- >> keep in mind that prices are still elevated. >> reporter: burdensome for budgets why for the same items the typical household shelled out $371 more per month than in 2021. >> it's really expensive. >> reporter: key categories like represent and groceries continue to hit families where it hurts. eggs soaring 60%. pressured in part by a record outbreak of the avian flu. >> it's gotten worse if anything. >> reporter: this is the third grocery store she visited in

search of reasonable prices. >> it shouldn't be such a struggle to pull together a meal. >> reporter: the owner of this store says prices are leveling off. >> we want them to shop regularly and not be so concerned about every penny they send. economic analyst steve ratner. inflation continues to fall but at the grocery store you are not feeling that way. >> that is exactly right. you have overall inflation falling and good news as you heard in that report. you can see on the chart the top line is what we call headline inflation. all items including food and energy. up 6.5%. it peaked around 9% back in june.

inside of that you have good news from energy, from a bunch of services but food is a problem up year over year 11%. if you look at the solid line just below that is core plags. takes out food and energy where we have had good news and looks at the central parts of the economy, goods and services. that's what the fed looks at. down from 6.6% in september so it's a good report and moving in the right direction hopefully taking pressure off the federal reserve. >> you said the metric moderated. explain what you mean. >> what they focus on is a core measure of services, doctors,

lawyers, travel, because that's where they have a heavy component of labor costs. and the good news is that powell's key metric as we call it has gone from a high of 10.2% back last spring to only 2.2% in the latest month on a year over year basis and hopefully make it easier for the fed to impose a smaller interest rate increase like a quarter a point. >> that one certainly very closely watched meeting when that comes. let's turn to the third chart now. wages are still growing but the growth has slowed. >> yeah. as i indicated in order to get inflation down on a long term basis we need to moderate wage

increases. we want people to earn more money but if it creates inflation they are worse off. we need wage increases to come down. this is good news. they peaked at about 7.5% rate increase a year ago down to 4.2%. we need it at the red dotted line which is the 2.8% before the pandemic and everything that turned the economy upside down and we have no history of that happening without unemployment rising. not something to root for but we have a hot labor market. we have not seen that happen yet and so that may mean that the fed does have to increase interest rates to get that to happen. >> we'll keep an eye on that. steve, when this technical problem happened with the faa to

ground domestic departures, you are the first person we called. we want new details about the outage. officials believe it may have been caused by a single contract employee. >> reporter: nbc news learned that information suggests at least one and perhaps two contract employees may have caused a computer failure that grounded hundreds of flights early wednesday. they had access to the system and apparently edited a file. it is not clear out of malice or human error. investigators only determined what happened after reviewing computer log-in record. the system is running on 30-year-old software. transportation secretary pete buttigieg.

seems hard to believe a single person could put the faa in the position to hit the pause button. >> that is exactly what i am asking faa to review and getting an explanation about. we need to make sure that there are enough safeguards built into the system that this level of disruption can't happen with an individual person's decision or action or mistake. >> reporter: led to cascading delays and cancelations that affected hundreds of thousands of passengers. >> alarming that the whole system was affected. >> reporter: the faa tweeted operations are back to normal. while bad weather did lead to some delays there were less than a third of wednesday's meltdown. >> can you ensure that we will not have a repeat of what happened on wednesday morning? >> that's what i directed and will say that the steps are taken to make sure that the sequence of events couldn't

happen again. >> tom costello reporting there. steve, first, the software hasn't been updated in 30 years. also that a single person possibly based on what we know now may have been able to ground domestic flights a couple hours in this country. how do we prevent it? >> the faa's computer system should not be set up with a single point of failure but there's broader points. i have been flying for 30 years. if you go into the cockpit of any new plane today, even a tiny single engine plane you see much more sophisticated equipment in that cockpit. if you walk into an faa control tower you see what you would have seen 30 years ago.

it is antiquated and back to washington. the budget for faa on an inflation adjusted basis is at or below what it was in 2004. the faa has been trying for ten years to put in next gen air traffic control to prevent things like this from happening and make it more efficient, cut delays and can't get it done for budget tear reasons with congress. number three, the faa has not had a permanent administrator since march. biden administration nominated a person. the senate doesn't love this person. the fact that there's a contract employee handling this may be a function of the budgetary situation. it comes back to policy,

washington, ability of the government to execute. i want to end on a positive note which is they have kept us safe. i think we have to recognize that, as well along with the problems they have to deal with. >> well worth it. thank you for being on. coming up, more on the question of president biden's handling of classified information. how would jen psaki advise the former boss? she joins the conversation straight ahead on "morning joe."

i screwed up. mhm. i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please!

you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck. he's fading fast. he's a proven loser. he cost us the house in 2018 and

2020, cost us the senate. we all know that. we're moving past trump. i can't imagine him getting the nomination. not that i don't want him to, i just don't think he will. >> that was former speaker of the house paul ryan speaking with cnn yesterday when asked about former president donald trump's influence. kevin mccarthy yesterday said he is open to the possibility of clearing one or both of former president donald trump's impeachment charges. here's what he said when asked ant it yesterday. >> when you find that the final information that the russia document was all a lie, when you watch what he went through, i would understand why members would want to bring that forward. i understand why individuals would want to do it. >> those comments came almost two years to the day that

mccarthy placed responsibility on then president trump for the rioters who stormed the capitol. >> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's attack on congress by mob rioters. he should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. these facts require immediate action for president trump. accept his share of responsibility. quell the brewing unrest. and ensure president-elect biden is able to successfully begin his term. >> trump was first impeached in 2019 after he was recorded on a phone call threatening to withhold military aid to ukraine unless it investigated joe biden, who was then a political rival, potential political rival. he was impeached again in 2021 on charges of inciting the riots on january 6th. he was acquitted both times by republicans in the senate.

jen, i mean, blatant hypocrisy at this point, especially from kevin mccarthy, boring, because he does it all the time. but it does lead to the question donald trump, as paul ryan pointed out, as joe points out on the show so many times every day, trump has lost for them time and time and time and time again. he is a proven loser, as paul ryan said. so what hold would he have on kevin mccarthy to make the effort to agree with going through the process of expunging his impeachment charges? >> i mean, when you raised the question in the opening, i did have to think that, but there is a, you know, not small but not a majority base of the republican party that is very attached to trump, that likes everything that kevin mccarthy is doing.

that is not -- you know, it may not be a majority of the party. it's certainly not a majority of americans. this is not the way you saw them do this first week, repeal funding -- take a to repeal funding for irs enforcement to catch up on tax cheats, more restrictions on abortion, this forming of this weaponization of the committee, say you're going to try to undo the impeachment of trump. by the way, kevin mccarthy not great on details, it was not about the 2016 campaign. it was about what he did as president of the united states. all of these things are not popular with the american public. they are popular with some measure of the republican base. and, you know, i don't know what's up with kevin mccarthy and donald trump and, you know, what their relationship is about.

and i think paul ryan may be right that, i mean, obviously, it's time for the republican party to move on. maybe the republicans are ready to do that writ large in the country but not in that house chamber because the republican members that he's indebted to that got him the speakership, this is their agenda, it is what they want him to do. here's what trump wants as well, but why he's so caught in this is because it's what the members of congress, you know, marjorie taylor greene, matt gaetz, that crowd that got him this job. coming up, bryan cranston is our guest. he joins us straight ahead.

live look at los angeles at

6:00 in the morning on the west coast. good morning, everybody. welcome back to "morning joe." it's 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. and we have a lot to get to this hour, including the latest on the deadly storm system that swept through the southeast, spawning tornadoes and leaving at least six dead. also ahead, we're following new developments in the massive faa computer outage that grounded thousands of flights earlier this week. the blame could rest with just one contract worker. we'll have the latest for you on that. how is that possible? plus, illinois became the latest state to ban the sale or possession of assault weapons. we'll bejoined by illinois governor j.b. pritzker to discuss that sweeping new legislation. and later this hour, actors bryan cranston and rosie perez will be our guests for a sneak peek at season two of their hit series, "your honor."

i'm excited for that, willie. >> it's a great show. i can't wait to talk to both of them. we'll get to that in just a bit. we begin in washington, where merrick garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate how classified documents ended up in the personal possession of president joe biden. at a press conference yesterday, garland announced the selection of robert hur to determine if any laws were broken in connection with those to documents. >> extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. this appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. >> in a statement, hur, who is well respected around washington, writes, "i will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate

judgment. i intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly without fear or favor and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service." the appointment of a special counsel comes as new details come to light about president biden's mishandling of classified documents during the administration. nbc news was first to report that biden's team had discovered classified files at a second location separate from the dozen or so we learned about at the start of the week. the second spot is the garage at biden's home in wilmington, delaware. it is unclear how many files were found in that instance, but their discovery was reported to the department of justice by biden's team on december 20th. this is video from a campaign video, biedenbaching into that garage in a '67 stingray. that was triggered by the first discovery of documents in early november at the penn biden center in washington.

according to two sources, one of those documents was marked with the highest government classification. and just yesterday the doj says it was informed that a single document had been found in another room at biden's delaware home, this time on wednesday, connected to the garage where the other documents were discovered. let's bring in white house correspondent for politico, co-author of "the playbook," eugene daniels live this morning at the white house. eugene, obviously a serious matter, whenever classified documents are removed and stored where they shouldn't be. and the response is the polar opposite way of the way former president donald trump has handled them, but how concerned is this white house now? >> reporter: i was talking to aides yesterday afternoon, and they know that they have a problem here, right. and for them, you know, it is more a problem of transparency as opposed to kind of honesty. they talked about how they did the right thing, they called the

national archive, and that and other issues make it much different than the trump situation. but they know that the communication of it, the fact that the only reason we found out about this was through reporting by cbs and nbc and then, you know, the department of justice yesterday talking about another document, whether or not that is going to change is another story, right. this is a white house that wants to kind of pick a lane and a way to move forward and stick with that. we saw with karine jean-pierre yesterday, the press secretary for the white house, is they are trying not to comment anymore about this, talking about the fact there is a special counsel other than to say they are cooperating, et cetera. i will say one of the things that we are still trying to figure out is, you know, how the documents got there, was it inadvertent. a lot of people you talk to, experts in this field, they will say that sometimes this happens, you know, classified documents

get tossed in with unclassified documents and moved around. but the question for this white house is why they weren't transparent about it since last november when this first happened, and then december, and why this week reporters were asking if there were other documents that were found, they kind of didn't answer that either. >> a good point about the lack of transparency about those documents. let's talk about where they go from here in terms of the politics of this. again, we underscore it's a very different legality, this case versus trump's. karine jean-pierre didn't have a lot to say yesterday. the president's comments about his corvette didn't go over great with every democrat i spoke to yesterday. this is something they'll have to live with for the foreseeable future. what's their plan? if they're silent and change the subject, they'll let republicans fill the vacuum and define the story. >> reporter: i talked to some

democrats yesterday, and a few agreed separately that this gives the investigations that house republicans have been wanting to do into this white house, it seems that for a lot of the american public this is much more legitimate. so when they were thinking about focusing on hunter biden, when they were talking about alejandro mayorkas, the secretary of the dhs, those are things people kind of ignored because they felt like they weren't going anywhere, but this does. so it gives house republicans a lot more ammo, and that is what you hear from democrats. you know, they say that they feel that the white house did the right thing, the biden team did the right thing in calling the archives and following the way that people are supposed to do this, which trump did not do, obviously, but they're frustrated with the concept that they have not been as transparent, because this is a white house that has talked about how important that is to operating, and when you don't do that, you give your opponents a lot more to run on, and this is

right before the president is supposed to make some -- his final decision and announce to the american people whether or not he's running for re-election. >> "morning joe" senior contributor eugene daniels, thank you very much for coming on this morning. joining us now, former white house press secretary, now an msnbc host, jen psaki, and former justice department official mary mccord. she's the executive director at georgetown university institute for constitutional advocacy and protection. mary, i want to ask you about the bar for a special counsel in just a moment. but first, jen, the messaging and the transparency. my question for you, especially since you worked in this administration, if we can put up that sort of tiktok of the days in which the information came out, i guess my question is, what would you struggle with as press secretary going to the podium with this story? would it have been better to say something when the documents were initially discovered or shortly thereafter, saying that

there's going to be a sweeping review of all documents to make sure there aren't any others? and would the press secretary be in the room to advise the president to make such a decision? >> sure. i mean, mika, in moments like this, what we've seen transpire over this week, you're basically picking in a white house between crappy options, right, and that is what they've been doing. >> right. >> presumably for the last few months. to your point, on one hand, it would make the press secretary's job much easier every day if they could go out and say here's what happened. this was sloppy staff work. these documents went in there inadvertently. they sort of said that, you know, but biden didn't even know about any of these documents, so this is a nonissue. that would make it easier for the press secretary. the worry they have there, mika, and they are not just influenced by the lawyers, the lawyers in the white house in a case like this make a lot of the decisions or have a very loud voice in the

decisionmaking, which can be hard from the communications side. and the lawyers are probably saying to them in a moment like this, if you make assertions like that and even anything is wrong, that could be a problem, right? or we're also going to piss off the justice department. we don't want to do that. so, that's one -- that would be an easier way for the press office. what they've clearly decided to do is to not say much, right. they've said a minimal amount because they're trying to not anger the justice department. but those options are crappy, right? neither of them are great. >> right. >> and neither of them make for an easy and smooth communications strategy. >> no, they do not. mary mccord, number one -- two things. confirm for me, the president can't be prosecuted, number one, but, number two, appointing a special counsel, the bar for that is potential criminality? >> well, to your point one, the

office of legal counsel memo would still apply in this case just like it did during the mueller investigation of potential russian collusion with the trump campaign, and that guidance, which is binding on the doj, including on a special counsel, is you can't indict a sitting president. that's not something that's been decided by the courts, but it's something that is binding legal guidance within the department of justice. on the second point, the special counsel regulations, it's important to recognize the two-step process that occurred here. the special counsel regulations allow for the appointment of a special counsel where a criminal investigation may be warranted and it's in the public interest. but before attorney general garland got to that step, the step yesterday of appointing robert hur as a special counsel, he took an alternate step, which is also permitted under the special counsel regulations, which says essentially when you're not sure what might be warranted, you can appoint a

special counsel to do an initial investigation of the facts and the law and make a recommendation as to whether a special counsel should be appointed. and that's what attorney general garland did first when he appointed john lausch. he did advise the attorney general to go ahead and appoint a special counsel, and at that point, i don't think the attorney general had any choice but to follow that guidance. it would have been politically impossible to say no to that, i think. so it doesn't mean there will necessarily be criminal charges, but it does mean that a criminal investigation is warranted. and remember, even though there are remarkable differences after documents were found at both mar-a-lago and the penn biden center and the biden residence, there's remarkable about how the men and their aides handled things after that. we don't know how those documents got into those places to begin with. the fact is it can be a violation of criminal law to

have classified information in place where is it's not authorized to be. it requires intent. it requires knowledge. it can't be inadvertent. but we don't know the answers to those questions really with respect to either investigation. so it's not crazy to appoint a special counsel by any stretch. >> right. >> you're right, mary. these have been continue facilitated by congressional republicans this week that this is exactly like what donald trump did. the difference of course, we don't know about intent on the front side of it, on the backside of it, we know about the obstruction from donald trump. in your view just on the public information that's available to us, how different are these two cases? >> well, i think they're remarkably different because for criminal culpability, there needs to be intent to retain the documents, and that's under 18 usc 1924. i don't want to belabor this under code citations but also

under the act that criminalizes failure to return classified or national defense information when it has been demanded by federal officials. and we know that that was, in fact, the case, at least based on public information with respect to trump. that is very far from what happened so far, at least so far as we know, with respect to the documents that president biden's lawyers found. so, when prosecutors are looking at, you know, bringing a criminal case, they do several things, right. they do the entire investigation. they determine whether they have facts and evidence that would support every element of a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt. then they look at their case and the universe of other cases involving in this situation mishandling of classified information, and they see whether cases are alike, and we want to treat like cases like, which cases are dissimilar, and we will treat those differently,

because the department wants to be evenhanded and fair in the way it makes charging decisions. there's a lot more to come here, but there's nothing publicly known right now that would support, you know, anything after the finding of the documents warranting criminal charges. >> that we know of right now. that's right. thanks for your expertise. former justice department official mary mccord, thank you very much. developing this morning, the seditious conspiracy trial are will resume soon in washington for a proud boys leader and four other members of the far-right extremist group involved in the january 6th attack on the capitol. federal prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered opening statements yesterday. all five defendants are charged with conspireing to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force, assaulting and impeding law enforcement officers, obstructing a governmental proceeding, destroying government property, and preventing, hindering or

delaying by force the execution of governing the transfer of power. the prosecution says in the days after the 2020 election the defendantings started to call for action and war if former president donald trump was not re-elected. their clients denied an attack on the capitol arguing the clients are victims of selective prosecution, being targeted because of their political beliefs, specifically an attorney told jurors his client was being made a scapegoat because he, quote, wrote and sent a lot of offensive things. jonathan lemire, you wrote the book on all this, "the big lie," of course, the events leading up to the election, january 6th, and everything that's happened since then. what is the fate of some of these proud boys who certainly took their cues from donald trump on the stage of that debate back in september of 2020? >> first of all, i'm struck by the defense there, yeah, my client said a lot of horrible things. your honor, my client is a bad

guy, but he didn't do this. that seems to be what he's going for there. but it is a reminder to this point the people who are being prosecuted now on trial are those who stormed the capitol itself. and so this point, and this is to the frustration of many, those who have avoided charges are those who are believed to have sent them there, and that's donald trump. and jen psaki, there were more arrest this morning. the fbi is continuing to arrest and charge those who stormed the capitol. the special counsel appointed for donald trump, it's not just about the classified documents. >> right. >> joe biden has special counsel about the documents. donald trump has one for documents, yes, but also january 6th. and that investigation is still very much ongoing, efforts to overturn the election. isn't that in a way you look at the politics of these special counsels, isn't that the argument democrats should be making? >> yes, and i think they will. if you look at the outcome to your point, jonathan, of the

elections, the midterm elections, the democrats were able to hold on to the senate and really surprise people in the house because they were defenders of democracy, right, and they were running against these election deniers and people who would be sympathetic to january 6th rioters. that is, i think, the message they will continue to run on. it's also on the politics, i think, it's also important to note here, and maybe this speaks to the country, i have no idea, but the mar-a-lago documents, as horrifying as it is, trump's handling of them, it's not clear or i have not seen data to suggest that that is the driving issue that has driven republicans and independents away from him. they have run away from him because he's an outlier on some of them on election denial and also because he's a loser, right? so this argument that this very different case of biden's classified documents is going to be a political problem for him doesn't have to really even play

out on the other side. i think that's important to note because the difference as you said is who's defending democracy, and the answer to that is pretty clear. >> wow. all right. turning now to the deadly storm that hit the southeast. dozens of tornadoes touched down across the carolinas, georgia, and alabama leaving at least six people dead. nbc news correspondent blayne alexander has the latest from selma, alabama. >> reporter: it is the very picture of terror. >> i was praying. >> reporter: a massive tornado barreling through dallas county, alabama, ripping through car, homes, everything in its path. >> by the grace of god we all survived. >> reporter: all part of a severe weather outbreak in the dead of winter, producing nearly three dozen tornado reports across the southeast, snapping power poles, leaving tens of thousands in the dark. in selma, the storm tore a path of destruction through downtown. >> this is a sad day in selma

and dallas county. >> reporter: officials are reporting at least vansevenantnd deaths from the storm in alabama and georgia, a number they say could rise as teams begin search-and-rescue efforts. >> we've got the southern baptist chainsaw teams coming in to help the individual who is may need help cutting their way into their homes, getting into what may be left of their homes. >> reporter: on thursday, 23 million people were in the path of those storms, stretching through alabama, georgia, the carolinas, and kentucky. in georgia, a 5-year-old boy was killed when a tree fell on his family's car. elsewhere, others barely escaped. >> we jumped out of the car and ran in and we all got in the freezer. a lot of praying and calling on jesus. >> reporter: the weather relentless on both coasts. in california, the death toll continues to climb after days of unprecedented flooding. this morning, residents there are bracing for another series

of storms that are likely to impact the southern parent of the state this weekend. >> nbc's blayne alexander with that report. we'll follow that. coming up on "morning joe," in one of the first acts of his second term, our next guest signs legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons. illinois governor jb pritzker joins us next to discuss what he's called a four-year struggle against the powerful forces of gun advocacy groups. also ahead, a new government report reveals that half of new ufo sighting cannot be explained. oh, no. we're reporting this on friday the 13th. we'll have the details when we return.

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gee after nearly every mass shooting we've seen efforts to ban dangerous weapons thwarted, and then leaders send their

thoughts and prayers while they throw their hands up, resigning themselves to the idea that gun violence is a sacrifice that americans must accept. but it doesn't have to be that way. >> illinois is now the ninth state in the nation to pass a ban on the sale or possession of semiautomatic weapons. democratic governor jb pritzker signed the legislation on the first full day of his second term. the bill bans dozens of types of rifles and handguns as well as attachments and rapid-firing devices. it also requires people who already own those guns to register them with the illinois state police. and governor pritzker joins us now. thank you very much for coming on. congratulations on this. how do you think it will make your state safer or at least a step toward that? and what was the battle like to get to this moment? >> thanks, mika. look, our state will be safer

because, taking these weapons off the streets means that there will be fewer incidents of a mass shooting at a parade or against worshippers in their church or students at school, our own children. these are weapons that can fire -- as happened in highland park -- 83 bullets within less than 60 seconds. this has happened too often across the country and of course in illinois. so we just went after it. eight states had done it. we knew we could get it done, but we had to work hard. the activists, the advocates have been working for years to get to this point, and now we've elected a democratic governor and a democratic legislature, leaders, the president of the senate, the house speaker, who himself lost a family member to gun violence, all of whom came together to get this done. and it is a big deal. hundreds of lives will be saved each year. >> governor pritzker, good

morning. some of this is in response, as you alluded to, to that just horrifying shooting on the 4th of july in highland park, using an ar-15-style rifle that killed seven people in one of your suburbs of chicago. your republican challengers, the advocates you were just talking about there, have already promised legal challenges to this going up to the supreme court if necessary. are you confident it can withstand those challenges? >> i am confident. we of course had lawyers, constitutional lawyers look at this legislation. remember, it already exists in eight other states, so we're just the ninth one. and frankly we need a national law, we need congress and the president to come together and do this. i went to washington with the mayor of highland park and the commander of the police in highland park to talk to the president about this, who was very receptive. and of course now that the republicans control the house, it will be more difficult. but i believe we can get it done on a national level. we needed to protect the people of illinois right now.

>> governor, as you know, this gun is used in those kind of mass shootings that horrify the country and are terrible, but other critics say this law doesn't do a whole lot to stop the daily scourge of gun violence in chicago, which is used with handguns, many of them illegally obtained. what more can be done on that level to stop what we're seeing in chicago and have seen in chicago for decades now? >> well, there's no magic solution to this. you know, banning assault weapons, banning high-capacity magazines and switches is just one part of the problem. we've got to address the underlying causes of gun violence of course. and that means addressing poverty. it means making sure that our kids get a good education, that we're investing in these neighborhoods that really need small businesses and entrepreneurs to come forward. so we're doing that work also. we've put significant dollars into gun violence prevention, literally funding program where is we're getting kids summer

jobs and jobs all year round to keep them from joining gangs and getting involved in these kind of shootings. >> governor pritzker, good morning. jonathan lemire. cracking down on the sale of these weapons is one thing, but possession seems to be a trickier matter. could you walk us through the mechanics of what you do if someone, a, already has one of these who lives in your state, or, b, simply walks over a state line with one of these semiautomatic weapons, none of your neighboring states have similar bans? >> right. so in the legislation we require over the next year for anybody that has an assault weapon today to actually come forward and register that, the serial numbers of the existing firearms with our state police. after a year, once those are, you know, on record with us, they will be held accountable if their guns are used in

shootings, and of course if they are caught with any kind of a weapon that's been banned, they'll be held accountable for that according to the law. we will enforce that law. but they have a year to let us know that they have them. and you can't go acquire one now. you have to have had the bill of sale before the date on which i signed this legislation, which was a few days ago. >> governor pritzker, it's jen psaki. you've had a big week in illinois this week, because earlier this week illinois lawmakers also approved protections for abortions. now, many people may or may not know abortion is legal in illinois already. so if other states are thinking about what to do in light of the supreme court decision, why is this necessary to kind of take another step to protect abortion rights? >> well, you're right. i signed the reproductive health act in 2019 before the dobbs decision ever came around because we here in illinois knew this was coming. i wanted to make sure we

protected women in our state and anyone who came here. now what's important is because essentially it's been outlawed in virtually every state around us, there are women who are coming to seek refuge and seek to exercise their rights here in illinois. so we needed to do several things. one is to increase capacity so that we could handle that influx and also take care of the women who are right here in our own state, and then we need to protect people from the legal liability, from the criminal liability that they could be subjected to in those other anti-choice states. so that is very much a part of the law that we just passed. i'm very, very proud of what we've done. we are a pro-choice state. we've made a statement about this. we trust women in illinois, and we will continue to do so. >> all right. democratic governor jb pritzker of illinois, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. and jen psaki, thank you as well. it's great to see you. a couple other bits of news here.

former nebraska governor pete rick elts is set to become that state's next u.s. senator. the current governor appointed his predecessor yesterday to fill ben sasse' seat through 2024. then a special election will be held next fall to determine who will serve the final two years of the term. sasse resigned on sunday to become the president of the university of florida, creating the vacancy. tesla is cutting prices in the u.s. and throughout europe, in some cases by as much as 20%. the move came shortly after ceo elon musk warned that the prospect of a recession and higher interest rates meant the company may lower prices to help fuel demand. the lower prices may also help the electric vehicle maker qualify for more federal ev tax credits. willie? monday, january 23rd is the official start of tax season. who knew? that's the day the irs will

begin accepting and processing tax returns. the agency expects more than 168 million returns will be filed this year. the last day to file taxes is april the 18th. mark your calendars. and the $1.35 billion mega millions jackpot still this morning up for grabs. there's another drawing tonight. this is the second largest mega millions jackpot in history. the cash option would give you a little over $708 million. your olds of winning, about 1 in 303 million. >> i don't believe that. >> maybe today, friday the 13th, mika, could be your lucky day. >> i would not step out of the house. you shouldn't do it either. up next, and don't buy one of those -- up next, the person being blamed for this week's faa system outage that grounded all domestic -- how can it be one person? one person. the entire all u.s. outgoing flights. that makes no sense. we'll cover that.

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if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention. that's a live picture of reagan national airport in washington at 9:38 in the morning, 6:38 out west. we're following new developments in the massive faa computer outage that grounded thousands of flights at airports like reagan national on wednesday. nbc news has learned investigators believe it could have been called by contract worker who is introduced corrupted software to the system. nbc news correspondent tom costello has been following the story since it broke and has the latest. >> reporter: it's a stunning development that e, that massive faa computer glitch on wednesday that brought air traffic to a standstill, may have been caused by just one or two faa contract employees. senior government officials with knowledge of the investigation

tell nbc news the contractors had access to the faa's notam computer system. preliminary information suggests one or more may have somehow corrupted an faa computer file, damaging and slowing both the primary and backup systems. transportation secretary pete buttigieg. >> it seems hard to believe that a single person could put the faa in a position where they had to literally hit the pause button on all domestic takeoff. >> that is exactly what i am asking faa to review and getting an explanation about. we need to make sure that there are enough safe guards built into the system that this level of disruption can't happen because of individual persons' decision or action or mistake. >> reporter: investigators only determined what happened after reviewing computer login records. is there any indication that this was intentional? >> we've had no indication or evidence of that. of course part of what the review is making sure of is that

we know everything we would need to know in order to rule that out. >> reporter: the d.o.t. says the contractors no longer have access to the faa computers. the failure led to cascading delays and cancellations that affected hundreds of thousands of passengers. >> no information from the airline, no emails, no text messages, nothing. >> reporter: complicating matters, the notam system, critical for pilot who is need updated flight information, is running on 30-year-old software, and not due to be replaced for another six years. a former faa chief says those critical air traffic computers must join the 21st century and fast. >> the system is now stretched to its limits and can't tolerate, you know, to any inconsistencies, old software, hardware, any of that can have a very negative effect in the operation of the overall system. >> nbc's tom costello with that report. staying on air travel, shareholders of southwest

airlines have filed a class action lawsuit against the company alleging it failed to disclose its systemic issues and downplayed them in quarterly reports. according to the suit, the company's technology could not handle its flight scheduling, which led to an operational meltdown and mass cancellations last month. southwest pointed to its internal systems failures but largely blamed the cancellations on severe winter weather. however, southwest was the only airline that cancelled the majority of its scheduled flights during the busy holiday travel period. the class action suit is seeking damages for investors who purchased southwest shares between june of 2020, when problems with the company's scheduling technology came to light, and last month. southwest also faces another class action lawsuit filed earlier this month that alleges the airline failed to provide refunds to passengers when it canceled more than 15,000

flights. the department of transportation is investigating the holiday flight meltdown. and something that doesn't seem to be having trouble flying is ufos. the pentagon has received more than 360 new reports of ufo sightings since march of 2021. the office of the director of national intelligence says more than half of those reports appear to be balloons or drones, but officials say many cases need more analysis and, quote, appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics. the classified version of the report has been submitted to lawmakers. coming up, we have a pair of academy award nominated actor, bryan cranston and rosie perez. they join us ahead of season two, the premiere of their hit show "your honor." "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪3, 4♪

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i am offering you a chance to atone for what you have done, to help eradicate an entire criminal organization for good. >> what exactly are you asking me to do? >> did you ever tell anyone anything that i should be worried about? >> your problem is my problem. >> the last time i saw someone get his way, he was shot in the ass. >> tread very carefully right now. >> anger is where i want to live. anger is where i flourish. >> it is such a good show. how far would you go to protect what matters to you most? that is the question at the center of the hit showtime

series "your honor" starring and exec impressive to deuced by bryan cranston with rosie perez now joining the cast in a guest starring role. anticipation for season two is high after season one ranked as showtime's top debut season ever. bryan cranston and rosie perez both join us now. guys, so great to see you. congratulations on season two. bryan, i love season one. season two starts streaming today. the first thing people are going to notice, fans of the series, is the beard. and i wanted to ask you why we find you with the beard, but i don't know if that gives away too much about where we find the judge at the beginning of season two. so, tell us a little if you can about where he is right now. >> well, good morning, willie. good to see you. >> you too. >> the ending of season one was tragic. everything changed in this man's life. and so we wanted to explore what

it would be like to have a character go through the reality of that tragic loss, the despair and the pain and the grief. and so part of that was that he's lost his desire for grooming, for self-care, for anything, and he just lets everything go. so we thought the look would be a nice juxtaposition between how he looked in the first season. >> and true or false, that is your own beard, you grew one yourself, bryan. >> it is. it is true. much to my wife's chagrin, it was my own beard and hair, yes. >> it does get a little unruly for a while. rosie, i'm so excited you've joined the series. do i have this right that you get an e-mail from brian on a friday and on monday you're onset with him doing the show? >> yeah.

it wasn't very nice of him, but yes. i was terrified, but after several hours of him charming the papts off of me, i said yes. he said he was going to take care of me, and that he did. >> wait a minute. you're using some words that are just not appropriate now. >> i don't think she meant it that way. i'm going to put a clip out there just to move on from the second season of "your honor" featuring a critical conversation that helps really set up the entire season. take a look. >> come on. >> heaven, talked about heaven. >> really? >> okay. ask what did you ask karla talk about? >> so you're just watching me.

>> what did you and carr lo talk about? have given you the impression that any of this is optional? sglu don't know why you're trying to push me. >> seriously? everything you know about the baxters, everything you have seen them do -- honestly, it's driving me a little crazy that i have to persuade you to take them down. >> that's because you still think that justice is something you can achieve. >> yes, i do. all i'm worried about right now is what those people still plan to do and all the evil that is planning to come. >> why do you care so much? >> why don't you care at all? >> you guys are great together. and rosie, i want to ask about your character. but rosie, what is it like working with bryan? and bryan, what is it like working with with rosie? rosie, you go first. >> bryan is a closeted goof

ball. and very, very fun thi. and maybe everyone knows this, he is extremely kind.ny. and maybe everyone knows this, he is extremely kind. >> now i have to say something nice. she is a consummate actor because on his first days, two days after she accepted the role, she was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. but you'd never know it. she pulled it off. it was like she puts on that acting veneer and it was like, whoa. ready to go. and i said that was fantastic. and she exhaled and said, i was so nervous. i went, you wouldn't know it. >> that's amazing. so now tell us -- dig into your character f you could for us.

>> okay. olivia is a federal assistant district attorney. her main objective is to bring down the baxter crime family. she understands that bryan cranston's character is the key. and she's not going to treat him with kid gloves because he was a former judge or because he experienced an immense amount of loss. she's going to do what she needs to do to manipulate him within the rule of law to get what she wants. >> bryan. >> just a very delightful person to be around. >> it sure seem it is. the cast is obviously terrific. but it occurs to me that one of the real stars of the show, we can see it come through, even in the clips now, is the city of new orleans. talk to us a about the city and the role that it plays in setting sort of this mood for

the series. >> the backdrop of any story is more than just scenery. we want to get into the culture and new orleans offers such a rich, deep history of of culture, music, food, spirits, both the spirits you drink and the spirits that may haunt you. and it is vitally important to be able to feel it. we wanted to get a sense of the city and its citizens and the potholes and the moisture in the air and it's an incredible place. and great crews down there. the people are very hospitable. it's a really beautiful city to shoot in. >> it's a great setting for a great show that just got even better with the addition of rosie perez. it's called "your honor". it's available now on demand and streaming and it airs sunday nights at 9:00 p.m.

bryan cranston, rosie perez, look at that the shot of you on the poster, that beard is out of control. >> he always looks certifiable. >> thank you both. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we have a minute left here. how are you holding up? friday the 13th. what's the rest of your day look like? >> i think i'm just going to shut in. i don't think there's much to do on friday 1th. nobody take any chance. jonathan? >> i'm looking at carefully. let's end the show on a fun note. nfl playoff weekend. i will be rooting against your giants on sunday. >> really? your patriots are out and you can't even take up the cause. >> final moments of our show. that's sunday at 4:30. that should be a great game. it's going to be a lot of fun. maybe not the greatest slate in

the history of the playoffs week one, but as the ratings have shown, we'll all be watching any way. >> but you have sunday today to look forward to. there you go. that does it for us this morning. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage, after a quick final break. realtor.com (in a whisper) if we use kevin's college fund, we can afford this house. the house whisperer! this house says use realtor.com to find options within your budget. good luck young man. realtor.com to each their home. nexium 24hr prevents heartburn acid for twice as long as pepcid. get all-day and all-night heartburn acid prevention with just one pill a day.

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good morning.