former vice president mike pence, of course, a number of stories about him courting different parts of the republican base. especially those conservative evangelical folks and anti-abortion folks but the classified documents situation i think calls into question a lot of people's ambitions in '24, because of a lot of questions that need to be answered before those things can be addressed publicly. >> certainly true and not just that for trump. he's facing legal peril on all sorts of fronts. georgia, january 6th and so on. so we'll see once this new fountain he may have found. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. our staff reviewed all of the materials in our office, and in our residence to ensure that there were no classified materials that -- that left the white house, or remained in our

possession, and i -- i remain confident that that was done in a thorough and careful way. >> uh-oh. now -- it's mike pence. and his lawyers. >> got to be hard. i said it can't be that hard. >> it's hard. >> can't anybody play this game? what you've got to be asking. >> well -- mike pence's lawyers are explaining how classified material ended up at the former vice president's home. more on the timeline and the response from pence's team in just a moment. also ahead -- speaker kevin mccarthy again rewards marjorie taylor greene. this time with placement on a subcommittee investigating the coronavirus. mtg previously had been kicked off social media platforms for spreading covid misinformation. great. plus, a special grand jury's report on efforts to overturn the 2020 election by former president trump and his

allieses. it will stay sealed for now, but the d.a. is promising imminent action in the case. good morning to "morning joe." it's wednesday january 25th. with us host of "way too early" and host of politico jonathan lemire and elise jordan msnbc political analyst. professor princeton university eddie glaude jr. with us and host of mountain nbc "politics nation "s and reverend al sharpton is with us this morning. >> a lot to talk about this morning. i do want to say. this thing about marjorie taylor greene -- >> i mean -- >> spews out covid information. >> made fun of science. >> somehow being a part of this. it's a concern because, you know -- well, i'll just -- my experience is covid misinformation just continues to

fly across twitter, across facebook, across the internet. i mean, i'm going to say, i don't think this is surprise to a lot of people. my twitter experience has been pretty good. even trumpers for the most part, fairly polite. some say, yeah -- say something about my dad and stuff, but they say it nicely. but, no. pretty good the past couple of years. the exception, though, are from anti-vaxxers. >> uh-huh. >> and let me say something about anti-vaxxers. i felt really sorry for anti-vaxxers and their children which they were left-wing freaks, and i feel really sorry for anti-vaxxers and their children now that they're right-wing freaks. these people, the conspiracy theories are so bizarre, they're ignoring science. >> and denying themselves the right to health. >> and not only that, we're

starting to see all of these old diseases that we -- we beat! the science beat. that medicine beat, starting to come back, because these freaks spread misinformation on twitter, on facebook, and here's the thing. they're so rabid and so inspired by people like mtg that they actually celebrated damar hamlin almost dieing, and they created -- they politicized the event, and now some of these freaks are actually saying that he's a body double nap he actually died. that this is somehow, some conspiracy. that he's dead. but that damar hamlin -- figure that we're seeing is a body double. you know, the thing is, you can't explain anything. you can't explain anything to people that are that schizo. i'm just going to do this as a public service announcement to those people who actually love their children and love their families and their friends and

want them to be healthy. you know, yesterday when i was talking about, getting covid, and -- should have gotten a fourth booster shot. a lot of these freaks, oh, fourth booster shot. oh -- no. listen. here's the deal. moron. if you get a flu shot, what do you do? go to the doctor, oh, my god! you want me to have the 50th flu shot? no. you get a flu shot every year. we're finding out with this pandemic, well, it lasts six months. maybe a year. so, yes. yes! put on your big-boy pants. put on your big-girl pants and if you want to be healthy i don't care if you don't. that's your business. smoke cigarettes, do whatever you want to do. stay up all night. don't sleep. that's fine. be unhealthy. your choice. my concern here, though, and let me bring in reverend sharpton, because we've talked about this. my concern, rev, is, that there's a disinformation out

there where people are saying, oh, well it doesn't work because you've got to keep getting booster shots. the thing is, you're always trying to build up your immunity, and people are still dieing from covid. is it a crisis right now? well, for the people who are dieing of covid, yeah. it's a crisis. is it as bad as it's been? no. but as a doctor explained to me when i didn't want to get flu shots you're not just going it for yourself, joe. you're doing it for everybody. will it stop you from getting the flu, no, but make the flu you get a little less intense. same thing with covid boosters. will it stop you from getting covid? no. but it will make it less. something i said yesterday. but this misinformation keeps getting out there and the least healthy and lead educated,

believe these stupid lies. not out and out stupid unless they're opttively stupid. look at all the medicine, all the science, it's straightforward. and -- how many people have died from covid? >> i've lost track. i will have to look at the number. >> but they'll even lie to you about that. say, no. actually they broke their ankle and died from a broken ankle. it wasn't covid. so, rev, this afflicts all communities. at the beginning afflicted people of color more, now finding it's afflicting white people, the disinformation. it's a real danger so now kevin mccarthy is promoting this b.s.? people are going to die because of it. >> no. no doubt about it. i think the most vulnerable in society are the ones that have been, the ones that have been marketed this kind of disinformation to play on their --

>> over a million people. >> -- their natural suspicion, their not believing in a system they felt wasn't fair to them. we confronted that which we started proportionate kind of care when covid broke, and you and i had discussions about that, because many in the african american community were dealing with old things, oh, this is like the tuskegee experiment, when the opposite was true in the tuskegee experiment. they wouldn't give us the penicillin. they wouldn't give us the shots. here we were fighting to get people to get the shots. i think now that it's gone widespread even among the white community, they're preying upon those that have the least information, that have the most distrust of anything, and they come with these conspiracies that really rob them of the health care of people that of means take for granted. of course, you're going to need boosters. of course you keep going back to

get more. you do that with any kind of precaution, and to play on people's lack of knowledge, i think, is absolutely inexcusable. >> a little tidbit for you. over 1 million people died in the u.s., also named to that xlect panel on the coronavirus pandemic, republican congressman dr. ronnie jackson. jackson, you may recall, once said the omicron variant was a hoax created by democrats to impose new covid-19 mail-in -- >> i mean, come on. and, again -- again -- we know what happens when republicans do this. they lose elections. they lose elections. they're going to lose elections, but i got something i'm more concerned about. i'm more concerned about people's health. >> dieing! >> and i talk, unfortunately, when i talk to prems, you know,

elise jordan, family members. you know? they end up in the hospital. a lot of them end up in the hospital. >> we're not kidding. >> so close to death, calling me to tell me good-bye, and weeping saying they should have gotten the shot that is a true story. >> it just -- it just keeps happening. other people getting it, get knocked down, or a best friend they work with dies from covid. he's like 35 years old. oh, i better get the shot now. it's such b.s. you look at seniors. even at the height of all of this covid -- all the conspiracy theories, you looked and saw that seniors, like 90% of seniors go the covid shot because they knew. everybody underneith knows that their life's on the line and this stuff will safe their life. it's the 30, 40-year-olds who decide to take the experiments and they can lie to other people.

i guess i take it more personally because i've got a couple of kids who, you know, one has upper respiratory and the other diabetes. can't afford to read this online but it's affecting all of our friends and neighbors. people i've gone to church with, people we love. >> people we love. >> hear these lies and go along with them. dr. ronnie jackson? i mean, come on. >> ah. really, it's -- it's strange. dr. ronnie jackson was respected when he was a doctor in the bush white house, and -- you know, helped people out with their shots then, and gave ambien before a foreign trip, things like that, and really did not see this strain of anti-vax coming but i guess when it's politically advantageous, sometimes people change their tune and turn their back on their medical training. you know, talking about -- >> perhaps.

>> -- how you hear from people skeptical about vaccines and the impact it has which they get sick or a family member gets sick. my cousin's wife in alabama is a pulmonologist. about a year ago posted a passionate plea on facebook, please it is not a hoax. i see, i've held so many hands of people while they're dieing trying to facetime with their families and i am tired. it's too tragic. it's unnecessary. >> yes. >> please, get vaccinated. and, you know, you have people on the front lines, all across the country who have seen this, and they know how very real it is. they know that it's not just some hoax. >> i mean, the reason i'm going on about this, for these people spreading these lies, it's just a game with them. just like all the other conspiracy theories that they're spreading. it's just a game. having fun. hoping it get to more clicks.

ronnie jackson, anti-vax freaks will send him money. you wa want to play it that way, play it that way. ugly look on life, and you'll look back on your life and regret it. but we're talk about people's lives and really the lies are just continuing. on people really so stupid that they don't understand about your resistance, builds up after you get a shot and then over time goes down and then you get a booster andbuilds back up. then it goes down over time? like the flu shot. this is not hard. and yet people want to keep spreading the lies. and lives continue to be at risk because of that. good luck with that. >> we'll pause on that and come back to it. we want to talk about the growing concern about the country's top secrets after the revelation that yet another one-time member of the executive branch was storing private documents at their private home.

former vice president mike pence joined joe biden and donald trump yesterday as the latest high-level official to become embroiled in controversy over their handling of classified information. in two letters obtained by nbc news, pence's lawyer greg jacob, jacob informed the national archives earlier this month found a small number of documents bearing classified markings were found at the vice president's home in indiana. jacob says the search was triggered by pence himself who asked an outside counsel to review his possessions in response to discovery of classified documents at the home of president biden. after finding the documents on january 16th, pence's team immediately secured them in a locked safe, and -- >> sounds like the sort of things you're supposed 20 -- to do! >> last terse, archives informed

justice department about the discovery and pence's lawyers arranged for fbi agents to come retrieve the files that same night. out of an abundance of caution, jacobs says he then offered to also give the archives the boxes, the documents were found in, those boxes were then driven from indiana to washington, d.c. by pence's team over the weekend -- and delivered to -- >> and -- >> -- this is important. >> he did all the right things. >> but did what happened in the white house, and -- >> we're going to play games. everybody's favorite game on "morning joe." >> what's the favorite game? >> for now, on 47 years, 47, 48 years. >> something like that. >> so let's play "which does not belong?" and reigning champion on "which did not belong?"

>> mike pence. joe biden. >> uh-huh. >> or donald trump? classified documents, which are different? which one does not belong? >> well, i think, joe, that that's a hard question, but seems to me that trump doesn't belong in that category. >> boom! why he's reigning champion! the thing, again -- a tough one. the thing is eddie, you know, pence actually only shine as brighter light on trump. biden actually only shines a brighter light on trump t. does. >> on trump's illegalillegaliti. oh they can't press charges against trump. yes, they can. because what mike pence did and what joe biden did is what law-abiding citizens would do. they find classified documents. they immediately contact the authorities. they immediately secure them. and they immediately get them to the doj. donald trump on the other hand takes them, hides them. >> and then says, no, you can't have that.

>> says they can't have them. they're in long-term negotiations. his lawyers lied to the doj saying they'd given everything back and when the doj, fbi calls he sends staff, we got it on camera, and they start moving documents out? out of the space where they were hidden. i mean -- >> it's happened before. >> so talk about this, eddie, how it actually, all of this, while embarrassing for pence and biden actually makes it even more clear on how donald trump will fully, will fully, illegally, held on to documents. >> i think it's very clear, joe, there's no question in the case of president biden and in the case of former vice president pence that there is an issue of obstruction. there's no effort in anyway to keep, you know, the national archives or the fbi from accessing these documents. in fact, they initiated it in some ways. another question. i'm a watcher of "way too early," and peter baker today

said very clearly. we don't know the nature of the classified documents from president biden and former vice president pence. it could have been a schedule. could have been something alike but we have indication what some of those documents were with former president trump. let me say this. never a question, for me, joe and mika, not a question what president biden would do with those documents or what vice president pence would do with those documents, but i was very concerned about what donald trump might have done, or might do, with those classified documents he had in his hands. >> yes. exactly. jonathan lemire, i see your lights on, so, yes, quickly before we go to this on this, ken dilanian, your "which does no belong?" question is this. are you ready? the yankees, the dodgers? the red sox? >> i like the other game. >> since talking about teams actively trying to win the world series, red sox do not belong. not talk about them and the playoffs.

eddie, appreciate your viewership. yes, i think in terms of the documents, this is, put it this way. cheers in the white house yesterday. yes, three matters should all be dealt differently legally on the facts, but there is the politics at play here, too, and when documents were found at biden's home after they were discovered in mar-a-lago murkiness in terms of politics. now found at vice president's pence's home as well, easier to explain, look, these things happen. we still take classified materials seriously. acknowledge they were mistakes in packing up these documents, but happened to us in 2017. it happened to vice president pence in 2021 and as just laid out here so clearly, the difference there, outlier is trump who held on to the documents. who fought releasing documents and perhaps obstructed justice. the chances for trump in a crime

only going up because the contrast is so sharp how he handled this as oppose to the others. this discovery embarrassing for pence and biden but legally peril us for trump. >> i want to know and what is a valid question in this is, what is the process when somebody leaves a position in the white house? >> yep. >> to go through their documents and make sure they're leaving what they're supposed to leave jie bet a step is missing there. especially for people in a rush. not making excuses for mike pence, for joe biden especially, or anybody, but i just wonder what the process is, because this appears to be happening now in a way that we're probably going to find out more people -- >> i don't mean to be -- >> some of these doimts, they documents turn out to be public information, still marked classified and shouldn't leave the white house. >> i don't need to be a simple country lawyer but the process

is go through all of your papers and make sure you don't take "classified documents" home! that's the process. >> that's the problem. >> no, no. >> people have hundreds. >> and they have hundreds of staffers! have the staffers go through and don't take classified documents home! i served on the armed services committee for years. i never said, hey! i think i'm going to take home this -- this pile, and put it in my storage unit and let it sit there for a decade. you just don't do it. go through my storage unit. bring in justice intelligence representative, ken dilanian. who's next? who's next? who's going to be next? george bush's dog? i don't know. >> joe, and when i talk to people who worked in white houses they say if you did a search of almost any senior cabinet official and looked in

the nooks and crannies of their basement you may well find classified documents, and i'm so glad you set it up this way, because we've been talking about the biden situation and now with pence about the larger factors at work here. which is a massive overclassification. 50 million classifications a year. awash in secret documents most which are not real secrets. when you talk about that, the, you know, certain people say just trying to justify now that biden has come up with these classified documents situation, but the trump situation is starkly different from that and you laid out all the reasons why. that was not the problem in the trump situation. there's lots of evidence he wanted those documents, took those documents and kept them after the justice department asked for them back, but in these biden and pence situations, what's really clear is we have a broken system here. there is a system inside white houses for logging and keeping track of classified documents. so they shouldn't just be left in an office in a vice

president's office when it's time to pack up the documents and move them back to his private home. when the administration ends. that's clearly what's happening and happened over the years. there was a diplomat in the obama investigation, they wrongly thought she was a spy. found classified documents warranted to charge her, no case. this was an accident and no charges filed because this happens. happened with roberto gonzalez. took classified documents home, no criminal charges were merited there, but the system is obviously broken. joe, interesting you mentioned your experience in congress. a lot of lawmakers are looking at this saying what the heck is going on here? when we view classified documents we're in a special room and have to leave them there when we emerge. that's not how it works in white houses, because in the white house, and in the, the oval

office is itself a skiff. documents are floating around in places and they're clearly, there clearly is not a good system for accounting for them all and i think that's in part what's happening here. >> interesting. >> ken, jonathan. who's next? the answer actually jimmy carter. ap reported at one point during carter's post-presidency they found classified materials at his plains, georgia, home and returned. no sense exactly when it was but it happens. we assume the likes of obama, bush, quayle, bush, all going through their files too. we know the department of justice conducted a search of both the trump and biden property. had to do the warrant to do the mar-a-lago one. key difference. any back-stepping here with vice president pence? >> can't rule it out, jonathan, but voluntary, as you said. you know, interesting to me that the justice department bypassed

normal procedures and quickly took possession of these pence documents from the archives. and so they're taking this very, very seriously, and you know, even though we're pretty confident that this was inadvertent, both pence and biden saying, look, we didn't do this on purpose. the justice department can't just take that on face value, because it's a crime technically to take classified documents to a place they're not supposed to be. they have to do investigating making sure this wasn't an accident. if you're pence you may well sign on to voluntary searches. the question is, when will this end? voluntary searches are ef cabinet member and white house chief of staff going back years? the other question it's really not clear how serious these documents are. in the case of the biden and the pence matters. i mean, in the biden case we've reported at least one document was marked tssei, which is a very high-level classification, could pose a grave and exceptional danger to u.s.

national security, but a lot of, as mika said, a lot of classified documents that are public information. that are newspaper articles. circulating around and so a lot hinges here on, on whether these were real secrets or not. >> all right. nbc's ken dilanian. >> thank you, ken. >> thanks so much for explaining that that, and, of course, donald trump, yesterday, because he feels so close to vice president pence. defending him. mike pence is an innocent man. he never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. leave him alone! p.s., if you see mike pence, hang him. left out the last part but definitely he was thinking it. >> gosh! >> look at that. >> so either -- >> i am an innocent man what is it? donald? oh -- >> you want to hang him -- >> he waffles between the two. prescriptions are known to flip-flop but that's a massive one. >> that is. >> okay. a good portion of the country

will experience some very messy weather today. let's go to meteorologist angie lassman for the forecast. angie, what you got? >> we've got a little bit of everything for everybody on the eastern half of the country. new york city, of course, does not have snowflakes falling now but later this morning could see some. a massive system stretching from parts of the great lakes basically to the gulf coast, strong storms. has snow put 80 million under winter weather warnings, watches, advisories from oklahoma stretching into portions of maine because heavy snow is on the way. what it looks like now. snow from kansas city, chicago, columbus working into places like detroit and eventually the northeast especially interior seeing some snow falling across the afternoon hours today. here's that line of thunderstorms. yesterday we had more than a dozen tornadoes reported in louisiana and texas. another active morning with tornado watch in effect right now for at least a little while longer. even tornado warnings as well near santa rosa beach in florida where we've seen reports of

tornadoes once again. how about the snowfall totals? going to make it a little bit of a difficult kind of morning poor for folks traveling. half a foot in places like detroit and northern new england like maine. 8 to 14 inches of snow, could be seen. a busy day across the area, guys. >> angie lassman, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest on the war in ukraine including developing news from germany plans to send tanks to the war-torn country after weeks of pressure from the allies. >> and the united states pressured to send tanks. apparently that's going to happen, too. and mitch mcconnell says house speaker kevin mccarthy needs to take the lead. we'll look at his new remarks and what that mean. and senator chris murphy, leading voice on gun safety our guest among the latest string of

mass shootings in america. and fi bill de blasio is standing by. you're watching "morning joe."

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♪♪ [ applause ] >> wow. it's amazing how they can just -- kick the -- restart those. >> amazing the republicans are letting this just sit there, but it's -- the story's getting so weird it's disturbing. >> really surprising. >> stop. george santos, so many problems there. where do we begin, but it is, again, thank you to people like donald trump and others, who let lies lay there. that's what you get. >> okay. >> that is what you get. >> talk about it. >> nobody cares. >> a funny skit and then -- >> no. i don't think there's anything but george santos that is funny at all, and i'm, like, way behind the time. about to buy my first pet rock. never play werdle? >> no. is that bad? i don't know how -- >> academic literature, joe, way above all of our heads.

>> i tried it and found it annoying. it's annoying. >> you do it, lemire? >> i do. it's a good starter beginning of the day. i tend to do it when mike barnicle's a guest on "morning joe" goes on about something, i tend do to it, yeah. >> ari told me i had to do it so i started doing it, and i understand -- >> what's the point? >> alex tells me, like six months late. >> do you have a starter word? one word you always use to begin with? >> don't they always say do audio or something with a lot of vows and move on from there? >> mine is, mine is "saint." a mix of common consonants and vowels and a few months ago saint was the word and got it on the first try. >> great. i usually get it on the eighth or ninth try, that said, still a lot of fun. i want to post mine. one of these days, these people

post them. i'm going to post mine and just, like, all in point, used everywhere. all six. used every letter and i lost. alex, do we have alex-cam. >> his voice. >> any humans there? >> so alex, you're great at this stuff. like, i -- i never -- i never -- >> good at werdel, if that makes sense? >> crossword puzzles. does one every day. i look at the crossword puzzle and it will be like four words, two across, a four-letter word for co-host of "morning joe" and sit there's for an hour, and go -- i don't know! just throw it away. but you, you, like, you do crossword puzzles. >> there he is. >> you do them every day? >> yeah. my religion. i take a, half hour of my time every day. i don't drink coffee. that's my -- my time to vent and -- just get away from it

all. yep. >> wow. yeah. i can't -- to get away from us is what you're trying to say. saying that, and's it scares me. >> who do you have thwe you? my eyes are so bad? >> this is liza, graphics producer. >> liza! >> who else? >> producer, lauren, and producer in the back. dan's behind me. not on camera. there's dan. >> dan! oh. >> keep going? t.j.'s in front of me, preston in the corner. dylan, tpm. monitors there. computers. >> i want to thank our control room for coming to work today. thank you all so much! i'm serious. >> and in the -- >> there we go! >> yeah! >> some people on set you can introduce, keep the show going. >> former -- how he sounds in my ear, guys. sort of like goading and pissed off same time.

yeah. goading -- >> new york city mayor bill de blasio. >> meaner to me than to joe. >> that's not true. yells in my ear all the time. >> you would yell back! >> i do yell back. it's a lot of fun. >> ands there's bill! >> okay. >> we have a situation here, guys. >> okay. you want me to do werdle, bill? >> no, no, jo. no werdle. >> okay. lemire's the only one. >> and stop it, you all. enough. >> annoyed by star wars. >> enough reasons to be on my phone. >> speaking of star wars watch -- mr. mayor, first question. what happened to the giants? you're still responsible for all things new york. what happened to the giants this weekend? >> give them credit, really a hell of a season. you know, it wasn't quite enough, but that's a team on the move. >> all right. and you're a red sox fan. what's wrong with the red sox? >> ah -- lack of identity, lack of direction.

what are they doing? why are they doing it? if this were a political campaign, you would say, what's your rationale? >> yeah. if this was a political caucus it would be the house gop. everything you just asked! what are they doing? where are they doing? what's their identity? they don't know. they don't know. turn to something very serious now. we've been doing the show 15 years. you've been in public service for 20, 25, 30 years. you've been around it. >> on the show with us for 15 years. >> seems to me used to in the late '90s from time to time hear about great tragedies like columbine, a couple years later colorado, a couple years later hear of a great dratchty only -- tragedy on the virginia tech campus. these great tragedies come every day. every day in america. i don't know if you saw in the past couple of days but showing

pew studies that show since sandy hook murders from guns have gone up 75%. murders from guns have gone up 50% in the past five years. this is an epidemic. the speed of it, the pace of it, is accelerating exponentially. got to do something. what do we do? >> joe, look. what's so interesting, you mention the pew study. pew did one of its public opinion surveys and found overwhelmingly americans, republicans and democrats almost equally want to see real efforts to keep guns out of the hands of folks with mental health challenges, and here we have in monterey park, in half moon bay, quintessential horrible examples of what happens when folks have grievances and mental health challenges, and are coming

apart, and have access to a gun. so i think one of the things we can do and do it at a state and local level, even if washington's paralyzed, strengthen those red flag laws. train our police. i can say it as someone who had the largest police force in america reporting to me. train the police how to handle mental health conditions more, but also empower the police to implement those red flag laws. buffalo's an example. we had red flag laws in new york state but the police were not given the training and the support, and the incentive to actually see that shooter when they came in as a student, saying he wanted to commit a mass shooting, rather than, let's process the guy and send him out, no. we're going to do aggressive follow-up. make sure this guy never gets a gun. that didn't happen in the case of buffalo. we got a lot more to do to make these red flag laws come to life. >> bill, as we deal with the red flag laws and as we deal with

training, we also have to deal with mental health. >> yes. >> and i think that people are trying to look at just one easy way out rather than deal with all of this, and at the same time something you and i have dealt with for many years before and after you were mayor. not robbing people of their civil liberties while we try and deal with this, because you have the far right wants to go all the way back to things that rob us of our liberties and the far left wants to just go to where there's no kind of, of system at all of accountability, and neither are right, i agree with you, rev. look, in the case of mental health in particular, right now are we're asking police officers all over this countries to deal with mental health challenges without training, without support. they're not doctors, but they actually are the people often who deal with the mental health crisis first. that can be remedied.

we are not empowers loved ones, family members, to feel they can support something. finally a national hot line, 988. in new york city 888-nyc-well. my son, nephew, my brother's acting kind of strange saying threatening things, what can i do? we can do those things in the context of protecting civil liberties. also in new york we did, mental health challenging out there sometimes it's best not to send police but send mental health professionals but if they see indication someone might be training towards violence, get the police there immediately and get potential of having a gun is away from someone. the point is not to get hopeless. a little progress in washington last year. >> yeah. >> bipartisan progress. that's something, but the real actions at the state and local level and it's what we can do to empower people, empower police to do more. >> yeah. you know, eddie glaude, over the

past couple years talking about this pew poll or this pew study and talking about murders, because obviously the last couple of days mass killings. in california, another part of that story, which underlines very simple truth. where there are more guns, there are more deaths by guns. and you -- you can look, state by state by state, and it's true in every case. it seems, though, another part of this. the rev talked about mental health. i haven't talked about suicides by guns. that same pew study showed that, while there were almost 20,000 murders in 2020, by guns. there are also an extraordinarily high number of suicide by guns. why? because the guns were in the house. >> uh-huh. absolutely, joe. i mean, one of the things -- i think we need to talk about in this discussion, not only red

flag laws, licensing, a range of other things, but when are we going to address the fact there are 400 million guns in the country? how are we going to address the manufacturers who are flooding the market with guns? and we know that this disproportionately impacts resource to black communities. seems we have to deal with mental health, deal with the fact that police need to be empowered, don't need to be policing mental health, empowered to find those who present dangers to the public but also we need to hold corporations responsible who are flooding the market with these weapons that endanger the american public. seems we have to do all of those things if we're going to address the crisis we face today. >> and ironically a lot of public money is backing up those manufacturers. public sector buy as huge amount of their products for public safety agencies. a pension fund, public pension funds support a lot, but there's no accountability being demanded in return. this is an area also. separate from washington, real

action could be taken. demand more reasonable accountability of those manufacturers, or, you know what? take your business elsewhere. >> correct. >> yeah. former new york city mayor bill de blasio thank you. great to see you. >> good to see you, mr. mayor. coming up steve rattner joins us with charts that give historical perspective on the current stalemate over the debt ceiling. >> and could collapse the economy. >> yeah. plus frustration brewing in this country over an age-old practice that some consumers say is getting out of control. a conversation about america's tipping culture. that's next on "morning joe." i like to tip. >> big! i know. >> yeah. but. >> it's great. >> all right. we'll be right back. the virus that causes shingles is sleeping...

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and that will bes 12ds. >> okay. and -- keep the change, please. >> oh. we're not allowed to accept tips. >> oh. not allowed to accept tips. >> your change is 8. thank you. >> thank you. >> can i get you something, ma'am? >> would you like something to drink? >> you hour? >> bye. >> you tip a flight attendant? i tip everybody. that's my philosophy. see, actually, it's not tipping i believe in. it's over-tipping. >> exactly! >> there you go. steve martin's character in the 1990 comedy "my blue heaven" with his philosophy on tipping. >> over-tipping, too. >> i do, but i will say this. next story is an interesting one, as digital payment methods are replacing the traditional cash register and more and more businesses, the convenience has some people feeling frustrated because of how it's affecting tipping. the a.p. has a feature on the

issue writing that some consumers say they're tired of being asked to leave a gratuity for a muffin, or a simple cup of coffee. what's next they wonder? tipping doctors and dentists, too? etiquette experts say the digital screens used to process payments can make consumers feel pressured to leave a gratuity. because your generosity or lack thereof can be laid bare for anyone close enough to glance at the screen including the workers themselves. the a.p. also talked to a worker who depends on tips to supplement his $15 hourly wage. the barista in philadelphia says it helps cover his rent and eases the burden while he attends grad school and added it's hard to sympathize with consumers able to afford pricey cough drinks but complain about tipping telling the a.p. tipping is about making sure the people performing that service are getting paid what they are owed. >> what do you think? >> well -- i'm fine with it.

i just don't like employers that set up this so that they don't have to pay as much. i think people, i think the minimum wage, of course, should be raised at all times, you know, to match inflation, and match the way the economy is. >> right. >> but, and i think tipping is the right thing. >> i agree. i mean -- a tip. >> i like giving tips. >> the thing is, so -- >> if you can't, that's okay, and if somebody is a waiter. go through a meal and everything, give a 25% tip, that's great. everything, but if you go buy a rock and somebody says, here, tip me for -- i just reached, i got this rock. i mean, you're like, okay. i'll give you 15%, i guess, because 12 of you are staring at me while i'm holding a rock, doesn't make a lot of sense, but, jonathan lemire, i went, took my kids to play a game a come weeks ago. >> did you win? >> that's nice.

>> no. i always let my kids win. come on. >> you did not let them win. >> and i give everybody a participation trophy. i know -- i saw you beat your 7-year-old in ping-pong 21-3. >> yeah nap was taking it easy on him. i don't let them win. they have to earn it. it will mean more down the road. >> yes. >> whatever makes you feel good. i don't mind. you know? i guess i'll tip anything, but, you know, to say i want three rounds's putt putt give you the golf ball, go to play and then it's like gratuity. well, wait. i paid 15 -- okay. >> no. they're cleaning the, doing everything. you have to tip them. >> i do tip them. i tip everybody! i'm like steve martin there. right? just -- hand him -- >> better. >> consumers are getting frustrated, go buy a rock and they want you to give them 15%. >> joining us now -- >> i'm not done yet.

lemire has to answer. you interrupt me, mika. it makes me sad. happens all the time. >> seems to be the change. more and more industries and services looking for the tip. suddenly on the screen, tip. like you weren't going to tip anymore. bigger thing wages trying to make extra money, or employers trying to cust costs. oh, my employee will make it up in tips. tip more than i should, my tendency. i understand why some are frustrated. feel it's an added cost for folks who are trying to just buy a muffin or anything like that. >> yeah. fine with us. we tip everybody. may not be fine with other consumers who are, like, you know. taking my family out. having -- >> for that expensive cup of coffee. one thing every day they do for themselves and a lot of money. coffee can be like $5 a cup

depending what you get. >> the thing is, though, i'm with mika. a cop out for a lot of employers and a way they don't have to pay -- >> that's t. speaking of tipping, bring in a guy that will tip -- 5% on everything. >> a big tipper. >> and on everything, of course -- >> no. a big tipper. >> and treasury economic analyst. he's a big tinner i know. steve rattner is a big tipper! talking about debt ceilings, and you have brought charts for the kids. want to ask about tipping first. >> i do. >> what do you think about this whole tipping a.p. article? >> i'm with you guys. i find it an enormous pain in the neck to go into a store buy a cup of coffee, a muffin and be expected to tip. i think what they should simply -- also very sympathetic to workers. tough jobs. don't get paid a lot of money. in favor of raising prices, paying the workers more, and let's get rid of tipping.

interestingly, a group of restaurants high-end restaurants in new york tried this eliminating tipping, raised prices. nobody liked it and went back to tipping. maybe just stuck with it. >> there you go. okay. >> kind of the bottom line right there. >> again, it's -- the workers deserve it, because -- again, especially when the wages are so low. steve rattner, let's talk about now the reason you came. that is, of course, the debt ceiling and same as it ever was, same as it ever was. >> you didn't have me here to talk about tipping? all right. then i'll talk about the debt ceiling. so, look. we're having this big debt ceiling fight and republicans are acting a little bit like the scene at "casablanca"casablanca really the case or the biden administration that's created this problem. look back in history. on the left you see the amount

of debt added by each president per year to adjust for presidents been there longer or shorter. yes, added a lot of debt during the biden administration. had covid. the american rescue plan and so forth, actually under trump added even more debt per year than we did. so it's a little hypocriical for republicans to now be crying foul pup see in fact we have been adding more debt over the last three presidents. had a financial crisis, had covid and spending is somewhat out of control. that's a subject that we ought to be able to get our arms around. on the right, the real measure of our financial health is how well we do in terms of debt relative to size of our economy. that's also growing, and almost under every president, but interestingly, the two presidents under which is hasn't grown are bill clinton, actually had budget surplus, you remember. and joe biden, who has brought the deficit down in large part because conserve id ebbed but nonetheless had a better record than trump who's been exorbitant

more spending than biden did. >> more than anybody? brought the deficit down? >> he did. covid ebbed from a point of health view, better in health than two years ago. >> who's raised the debt ceiling more? republican or democratic presidents? >> funny you should ask we have a chart on that. in fact it is republicans since 1978 raised debt ceiling 32 times. democrats 20 times. actually the president under whom the deficit rose the most was ronald reagan, in fact, at 19 times, and what all of those different colors show you is that the deficit ceiling, it get raised whether the party in power controls the congress, whether the party in power doesn't control the congress.

obviously the opposition party take as different view when not in charge. nonetheless end of the day always raised every single time in history, it's gotten raised. when necessary raises with help from the opposition party. >> also talk republicans selective in debt ceiling concerns. tell us about that. >> when it comes to having the vote, interesting to see how each party votes depending upon who's in the white house. what this chart shows you the answer to that question. look at the right. the democrats traditionally vote as a majority in favor of raising debt ceiling whether a republican or a democrat. the blue squares at the top what happens when there's a democrat in the white house get up to about 98% participation in voting to raise the debt ceiling, but even when a republican is in the white house, those lighter blue circling show you majority of democrats help out and get the debt ceiling raised. the republicans on the other hand, again, in the world of hypocrisy, when there's a

republican in the white house, majority of republicans vote to raise the debt ceiling. a majority. democrat in the white house, most republicans vote not to increase the debt ceiling. few as 20% vote to do it. you've got a little bit of political hypocrisy here depending upon who's in the white house and what your political party is if you're on capitol hill. >> steve, i -- like the idea paying our debts in a timely matter, of a balanced budget as much as possible. and republicans have said for years, as you talked about, they do, too, but when have power of the purse things change a bit. is it really that bad to add on more debt to keep raising the debt ceiling? where do you stand on all of it, big picture? >> i stand that debt is still debt and in the long run we have to pay it back but amount of interest on that debt and what we have to pay to refinance the

debt when it comes due becomes a bigger and bigger drag on our economy and starts to crowd out other spending. the more we have to spend on interest on our debt, and of course interest rates are going up a lot at the moment, the less in theory, anyway, we have for all the other things were needs to be doing. whether social security, defense , what have you. both parties serial debt incurers. trump almost doubled it before covid and republicans don't have clean hands on this but as a country we have to get together at some point and address this problem. >> all right. steve rattner, thank you very much for coming on this morning. and he is a big tipper. >> a big, big tipper. >> i promise. and start where we ended with steve rattner, the debt ceiling. mitch mcconnell basically saying, you know what? i'm not going to negotiate

against kevin mccarthy and five or six freaks in the house. i'm going to sit back and let kevin mccarthy figure this out. where do you think this ends? >> so that's a prescription for disaster. i mean, you have seen the level of competence in house of representatives over the last three weeks. they can't negotiate themselves out of a paper bag. can't even articulate what they want in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling, and so almost by design, if you are intending to negotiate with kevin mccarthy you are jumping the country into a deep, deep black hole. listen, i just think that when you sign up for this job you sign up to pay america's bills, and the fact of the matter is every budget passed every-year is bipartisan democrats and republicans vote for it. all debt racked up, republican and democratic presidents. i just think when you become a member of congress you have to agree to pay the bills and i think handing the keys over to kevin mccarthy right now at a

moment of dysfunction in house of representsives is almost a guarantee that we are going to default on american debt, because these guys can't even figure out what they want in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling. >> well, they don't even know if they want him. >> well, they -- they do for -- this week, at least. >> today. >> so senator, let's talk about ukraine. poland pushed the issue of tanks last week. told germany they're going to send the tanks to ukraine whether germany wanted them to or not, but then i think as more of a threat in negotiation now we have german tanks, but germans didn't want the tanks to go there unless the united states send their abrams tanks. something i actually do understand. fair enough position from germany. that looks like the abrams tanks and germany's tanks are going to ukraine. do you support the move and what's it mean for future of this war? >> i do, and i think what's been so important and -- i think

effective about american sfrat strategy from the beginning willing to adapt to conditions on the ground. at first it was ar artillery. then about getting these artillery systems into ukraine. now we're slogging it out on the ground, in something that looks very much like trench warfare and those tanks matter. maddening to me how hard to drag europe along. particularly the germans. the united states has led from day one. no country has given more assistance to ukraine than the united states has, but we're pretty far away from this fight. the fact of the matter is, vladimir putin presents an immediate threat to europe, and to the countries in central and eastern europe in particular. so i would like to see a much greater sense of urgency from our european partners. see them putting more money on the table instead of having to be dragged there by the united states every time. >> yeah. and we, we've been talking a

good bit this week obviously about the murders in california. have been talking about a pew stud they showed that murders by guns have actually gone up 75% over the past decade. since sandy hook, which, of course, you know all too well about. sandy hook was supposed to change this debate. instead the murders just keep escalating. what do we do? >> so, i mean, there's a pretty simple explanation for this. there are more guns in this country than at any time before in our lifetime and it's growing exponentially year by year. so when shandi hook happened we were selling about 8 million guns per year in this country. that's still a lot of guns. today we sell 20 million guns per year. just in ten years the number of guns sold every year in this country has doubled. in bridgeport, connecticut, i talked to a detective there who

works the homicide and violence beat and said in the last two months i haven't broken up a single fistfight, every beef, every argument between young people in bridgeport is a gunfight, involves a shooting. everybody has a weapon in dangerous neighborhoods today. weapons are ubiquitous in society and so we're in a race. right? we're passing stronger gun measures than ever before. states are passing them. finally broke through last year at the federal level, but when you have this guns in our community, easy to resort to violence for small arguments to turn into guns fired, and so that's the issue right now is the pace of gun sales especially these dangerous, untraceable guns. >> what do you think of in places like bridgeport, i don't know if this is just too small, but gun buybacks in cities like bridgeport? >> i think they're important, but i think you're right. your instinct is correct.

the byebacks never bring back what are sold that day. a good gun buyback brings in maybe 100ultimately keeping they from these dangerous people. in connecticut 400% less gun crime than in states like florida or louisiana with loose gun laws. you can save a lot of lives just by being more careful about who gets guns and that's what we want to continue to do. keep up that momentum at the federal level. >> so let's talk about the documents, classified documents. first donald trump then joe biden now mike pence. obviously mike pence and joe biden cooperating with authorities from the very beginning. donald trump just the opposite. what's your take on it? on this latest batch found in mike pence's home, and how does that move this debate forward? >> well, it's all kind of

mystifying to a lot of us in congress. right? we look at classified documents all the time, but when i do that, when you did that, right? we go down to a secure facility. i didn't even know it was a possibility or an option for me to remove those documents from that secure facility. but apparently there are different rules at the white house and that's a problem. it's been a problem under republican administrations and democratic administrations. so we clearly need to look at how classified documents are handled at the white house and i think everybody that's ever worked there has to search their home making sure they don't have them. a big difference between how pence and biden handled it. speeding, caught for speeding. pulled over paid the ticket. willing to pay the ticket, at least. donald trump essentially is leading law enforcements on a high-speed chase. so there is a big difference here, but it does, bring as light of a pretty important problem at the white house we've

got to solve. >> senator chris murphy of connecticut. thank you very much for being on this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you. and joining the conversation now we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle and host of the podcast "on brand" with donny deutsch, and still with us, reverend al sharpton and elise as well. good to have you all onboard. house speaker mccarthy following through on his threat keeping two people from keeping seats on intelligence committee. speaker announced blocking california congressman schiff and swalwell from key positions on the committee. hakeem jeffries, speaker mccarthy said he could not put partisan ahead of security claimsingal two democrats lied to the american people.

claims both vague and unproven. in addition to keeping schiff and swalwell off the intelligence committee, speaker mccarthy has also said he intends to remove democratic congressman ilhan om ar, and with a narrow republican majority, mccarthy can only afford a few gop defections. >> and it seems, mike barnicle, already the defections are coming on at least omar's mission. other members saying not going along with this. what goes around comes around. what they're doing right now, democrats could do republicans two years from now. but on the -- on mccarthy stripping swalwell and -- >> accusing them of lying.

schiff? >> and schiff, yeah, and accusing them of lying. bottom line is simple. they were both impeachment managers donald trump didn't like them. so here we have kevin mccarthy once again doing bidding of donald trump. >> so that leads to the question, joe, what's the over/under on whether kevin mccarthy will be speaker of the house on july 1st of this year? each day is a -- walking on thin ice, each day, in the house of representatives, that he designed. that he consented to, that he cut deals with in order to become speaker's now he is speaker, and one of the things they seem intents on doing right out of the gate is not governing. in a country that badly needs to be governed, and governed on one side of the aisle, at least democrats try. a sitting president who tries to govern and the fairly successful in governing the past couple of years in terms of passing legislation, yet republicans under kevin mccarthy are putting

teague subcommittees about weaponizing, about weaponizing the government. they don't want a government. they don't like the government. so this is going to be an interesting tale. i think it's going to play out very quickly. >> and also, donny deutsch. so interesting. we all have been so concerned over the past five, six years by republicans saying he needs extraordinarily extreme positions and we found out in '22 and actually in '20 as well, just causes them to lose elections. right? yes, we're upset. they shouldn't do this. this isn't good for america. this isn't good for our politics. this isn't good for congress. but -- it's kind of like, you know, a kid putting their hand on the hot stove. you're like, okay. well, no. don't do that, and if they do it when you're out of the -- they're going to burn their hand! these guys, they keep burning their hand. >> they do -- >> and they keep burning their hand. you know what? and they keep burning their

hand. so, now -- you've got him politicizing this, doing donald trump's bidding, keeping two people off the committees. putting anti-vaxxers on key committees. they're running wars against the government. >> and defaming these guys, swalwell and schiff saying they lied. >> they want to defund the fbi. talked about defunding the fbi. a war on intel agencies. like, that easy people can't stay out of their own way. they are destroying their brand every day! >> most extreme side loses an election. you think they would have figured it out lose five of the last six elections. a poll, what would you look for in a leader? able to get things done working with the other side. somehow that message is not getting through to the republicans. look, you see republicans front and the center, there are 218,

how republicans are there? yeah. 218. yet people you see front and center, the people -- people we see front ant center, marjorie taylor greene, boebert, matt gaetz, kevin mccarthy. the branding of that party, the people front and center, people that take up all the air space just basically pushing them down the well they're not going to get out of. i don't understand. i thought losing would be the elixir to wake them up. it's not. i don't get it. i don't understand, because we are a culture of winning. >> i actually do. >> i don't get it. strange. our former party, i mean, we used to be pretty maniacal about winning and can figure out how to win elections. these people, they lost in 2017. they lost in 2018. they lost in 2019. they lost in 2020. they lost in 2022. >> who could have a hold on

them? >> and despite the fact they keep losing they don't change anything and keep their losers in charge when they were losing front and the center, plus they brought a lot of crackpots. come in! join the party! get in the front row! make our window display look at bad as humanly possible to the people we keep losing. young voters, women in suburbs. more educated americans. i mean, they're all bleeding away from republicans. >> joe, let's just think about what this country just went through for kevin mccarthy to even get his position as speaker. not just one vote. not just two. it went all the way to 15, and it was painful. >> hmm. >> and it's not like he emerged from that as a great consensus pick who was going to unify. now he's trying to pick these

battles to be petty and kick people off of committees which he doesn't even have the votes? he can only lose three votes and already has two, nancy mace said she won't do it and congresswoman spartz, too. is he just going to put for for all of these losing battles, because he cares nothing about governing? >> we've outlined -- >> she nailed it. >> -- public relations, republicans have. one of their own creations. marjorie taylor greene is one of the faces of the party. put your head down, do the work, competence party or something to leverage this as we start thinking about 2024 and be.

>> two things. let republicans act as they act. much as you can put the republicans front and center, obviously this is just a losing tragedy and democrats, to mike's point. just be competent. just get things done. i want to challenge the republicans. have they put one policy forward? one. name one issue other than -- literally don't have one! so basically biden, just -- i don't even say block and tackle. just block. don't even have to tackle, they win. it's basically, put your head down, mike said, be competent, get the job done let republicans be who they are. front and center. going forward in any election campaign don't brand as republicans. take six or seven faces i mentioned. that's the party. democrats used to have a problem. squad front and center. when's the last time you even heard the word "squad"? >> what they could do off headlines, go back to focusing on how many guns there are in

this country, and they could back to actually pointing across the aisle and by name, by name, point out specific powerful republican figures who are opposed to doing something about guns. name them. in public. on the floor of the house. just do it. just go for it. >> you know, donny, picking up on your point, though. when we started talking about this six months what do we do? what do democrats do? we had a conversation call them what they are. weirdos, freaks, and insurrectionists. and that actually is the reason why nobody's talking about the squad is because the republican party has pushed front and center the weirdos, the insurrectionists and the freaks. they glorify donald trump. despite the fact he puts out races tweets, attacking his own former cabinet members. just -- virulent racism, instead

of coming forward. you asked a great question. what use has this republican house championed? all about hunter biden. his laptop. attacking this, attacking that, attacking the government. it's destruction. just attack, attack, attack. i will say this, you know, when we came in in '94 people made fun of the contract with america. know what? all items on there had, like, average of like 70, 75% support. balanced budget amendment. term limits. shea's law, making laws in a apply to rest of america apply to members of congress. regulatory reform. tax reform. you go down it, and everybody was like, yeah, i support that, and so every time a, you're an extremist, just say on the campaign trail, oh. are you against the balanced budget amendment? term limits? against this -- nothing sounded extreme. but -- they're not talking about

any issues, donny. they're not talking about any issues that matter to the very american whose are going to vote them out of office in two years. >> got a lesson from fearless leader donald trump other than the tax cut for the rich. not one issue other than the issue of grievance. he stillance in a poll. shocked at the morning consult poll beating desantis by 16, 17 points. >> come on. and these polls beating joe biden. if anybody believes that guy's going to beat joe biden if they have a head-to-head matchup. please. put money down. you'll lose it. >> my point is this. as long as -- forget even the freaks we talked about i ticked off and we all know who they are. you still have him as the potential head of the party. it's -- it's a loss. you know, al davis used to be, just win, baby. their formula is just, lose, baby, and i don't see it changing anytime soon. >> we'll get back to this

political conversation in a moment but want to get to a disturbing story out of memphis. family of 29-year-old tyre nichols says the mem 'tis officers involved in his traffic stop should be charged for his death. officers claimed nichols was pulled over by police january 7th for reckless driving, and that he ran from law enforcement. they say that led to a "confrontation." when officers tried to detain him police have not released a detailed accounting of the stop or body camara footage. nichols complained of shortness of breath and according to police take ton a hospital in critical condition. he died three days later. the nichols family's attorney say an initial autopsy report shows he was severely beaten before his death. the shelby medical examiner's office has not released a report

yet. the five involved in the stop were all fired from the memphis police department after an investigation found they violated multiple policies including excessive force and duty to render aid. nbc news attempt to reach the officers were unsuccessful. two memphis fire department personnel involved in the initial patient care of tyre nichols have also been relieved of duty and i wonder if and when the body camera footage will be released, because given the fact the officers were fired -- there is something that clearly went incredibly wrong here. >> rev, rev -- these police officers brutalized him, and -- i mean, i love your statement that you put out yesterday. it was so important. this is -- nobody else seemed to be talking about it until you

started talking about it, but this guy was just beaten to death. literally beaten to death. it says echoes of rodney king simply, as you said, drives while black and yet the fib officers were all black and you talk about that, too. >> i think it is egregious, probably too light a word, to see what happened to tyre. i talked to his parents along with attorney ben crump day before yesterday. and i said the thing that outrages me, and i was involved over 30 years ago with the rodney king case, is that first of all, what was it that they were pursuing him about? a traffic stop? and they beat him like this? and then the fact that all five policemen, all five, were black, and if we don't, and we've been those in the civil rights community, cannot stand up and hold black cops to the same

accountability and show the same time outrage than if they were white, if we are fighting white police brutality and not police brutality i said to the family i'm going to weigh in as heavily as i can with national action network invited to speak at the funeral next wednesday, because this is an outrage. and race still is involved, you and i spoke about it on the phone. i don't believe those five cops would have done that to a young white on a traffic stop. so when blacks engage in profiling, when whites engage in profiles they need to not only be fired they need to be prosecuted. there is no way that i can see how they justify this. it needs to go in front of the court of law and i think the fact that they were fired before the investigation was completed means that the city knows that there's criminal behavior here. >> so -- so let me ask.

because, again, if the five officers were black, race is still involved, because the person who was beaten to death was black. what's -- what's your best explanation from talking to the family, talking to others on why these five police officers beat their child to death? >> they're really, they're grappling for explanations in the conversation i had with them on the phone and there really is not explanation, other than police feeling they have the right to do whatever they want to do, and they get in these gangs of playing with people like they're just some kind of obligates to take out some kind of violent misbehaviors. almost masochistic, but whatever it is, i think they must face the law. they should be prosecuted, and it cannot stop the activists in memphis, need to be supported by

those of us nationally. they're right. it can't stop with just being fired, and when we look at the fact we fought hard to get blacks on the police force in memphis. for them to behave like this we should double down on this case. >> in talking to the family, talking to ben crump, do you have any information on the circumstances of the stop? >> i don't have any information on the circumstances of the stop, but there are no circumstances that could justify beating a man to death. >> true, true, but i mean, the think starts with a circumstantial -- >> starts with -- say he cussed at one. this is unthinkable and unbelievable. >> no weapon. >> no weapon. >> i'm sure if there was a weapon they wouldn't have fired the policemen. you have to remember, firing of the policemen establishes that even their superiors don't see why this was in anyway remotely justifiable, and they didn't even wait for the investigation

to be over, which is why we're weighing in as heavily as we can to support these charges. >> rev, thought they could get away with this. thought they could get away with this, because he was a black man and nobody was going to care. >> and thought the black community, which has, in memphis, has, in many ways, been mobilized around this. they thought they wouldn't say anything because they're black. you can't hide behind your blackness anymore than you should be able to hide behind your whiteness to get away with what appears to be a murder, unprovoked. you can't hide, and it is a mockery to the movement to think that we are that cheap and that we will not stand up against wrong even if you have black skin. >> all right. still ahead on "morning joe," new jersey is the first state in

the nation to mandate media in school to present misinformation. we explain. plus new york mayor eric adams will be our guest. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. e some this that go better...together. burger and fries...soup and salad. thank you! like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. with voya, considering all your financial choices together... can help you make smarter decisions. for a more confident financial future. hey, a tandem bicycle. can't do that by yourself. (voya mnemonic.) voya. well planned. well invested. well protected.

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32 past the hour. new jersey is the first state to pass a law requiring "information literacy lessons for all k-12 students." as the rise of misinformation on social media grows new jersey may prove to be the model for other states as well. nbc news dasha burns take as look. >> we're going to check to make sure it's credible. >> reporter: identifying credible sources. >> a lot out there on social media that's true and a lot you have to fact check. >> reporter: finding evidence. >> we want to make sure we're taking the article and then looking to see what other news organizations are reporting.

>> reporter: cross-referencing stories, librarian here teaching students at south brunswick high helping them determine what's fact and fiction. >> curious about the world but do it in a way smarter than some americans may be doing it right now. >> reporter: this kind of lesson will soon be mandated for all k-12 students across new jersey signed by the state's governor earlier this month. it was spearheaded by the state's librarians and her class will serve as a framework for the new state-wide curriculum on education literacy. >> warrant them to cope and thrive in an environment media will be thrown at them constantly. >> you are giving them skills their parents might not have. >> absolutely. >> reporter: creating this should come as a surprise to no one. a cording to a 2021 pew survey

almost all adults get news from social media and found in the uk more teens get news from media than traditional sources instagram most popular, tiktok and youtube right behind. >> mostly information over tiktok, a sgid of information. >> visual and verbal learner. youtube is by go-to. >> reporter: how hard to figure out what's true? what's not? what's fact? what's fiction? when you're online? >> nowadays very hard. as technology advances more people are able to photoshop stuff and make more people believe it. >> reporter: how important is a class like this? to sort of help you figure out what are accurate sources? i believe it's very insightful and important because i literally did not think of any other things and i feel more people should have this class. >> reporter: the tools that helped these students think more

critically soon available across new jersey schools as it becomes the first state requiring districts to teach information literacy. >> how significant is this? is new jersey paving the way on this? >> yes. new jersey's paving the way. >> reporter: this woman is a librarian and president of the state agency of librarians a key player getting the bill on the governor's desk. >> heart of the bill is information. look at print and digital materials but at the heart of it is understanding what is true and what is real information and what is distorted. >> reporter: the state's librarians are hoping to use their unique skills to re-power the next generation. >> look at what these kids are learning, soon going to be voting age, it there hope here? >> oh, absolutely. you know that our students are really going to make change, important change, in the world, and we are giving them the tools

to be able to do that easily and be able to find their way within our crazy media-rich environment. >> amazing. nbc's dasha burns with that report. really brilliant. >> it's a -- >> long overdo. >> -- great idea. i will say, maybe the parents don't even -- of course their parents don't know about this, because, again, the people that we talk to, that just see something on a website. >> and think it's true. >> and you say cross-reference it. anybody doing this? no. what's the website say? never heard of it before. the things, cross-reference it. >> and can i tell you? anybody going to wikipedia is not necessarily good information. >> oh, usually it's not. >> they use it widely. first thing that pops up. so this brings us to the president on foreign relations richard haass and his newtitled

regulations." >> good citizens throughout the years called me up on a conspiracy theory. >> they think they're good citizens. >> obviously conspiracy theory, and i -- i talk them through it and say, you know, you're a conservative. why don't you read the "wall street journal"? rupert murdoch other thanes that paper. he's not part of the deep state conspiracy against donald trump. or a liberal, why don't you read the "new york times"? but they don't want to do that. i guess that's our -- that's the rub, isn't it? that there are unfortunately some people that don't want to cross-check. they want to find a lie that comports with their pre-existing prejudices and run with it. what do you think? >> a lot of that and also the

argument we can and should make people want to vote in ways consistent with their own self-interest, hold politicians accountable. how do you know that? how do you know which policy is right? which way to vote? that gets you to this conversation we're having, which is how do you navigate a world flooded with information and also with misinformation? and how do you navigate your way? i think what new jersey's doing is sensational by the way. love to see that scaled up across the country. finland is doing it and like to see it in other parts of europe. before you exercise logic, before then figure what's a fact an opinion, what's a recommendation, what's analysis and how to source it. this whole idea, joe, getting at this. you have to press people not to single-source information, but to multisource it so there's a little bit of intellectual competition. and in what they're getting.

i think is circles back to persuading them it's in their own self-interest to do t. richard, i love the book, know. the conversation around facts and opinion, interpretation, it's a complex one. not just -- it's not sufficient to just simply to recognize a fact, because we can come at it a number of different ways. a suspicion. ask this question. a kind of provocation. a broad public cannot acquire the skills requisite to be the deliberate body democracies requires. written in 1922, 1925, and given complexity of lie folks just don't have the bandwidth to do what democracies require. now you're saying obligates to be informed.

trace that back to burke in terms of dangers of democracy. how do you respond to a society as complex as ours follow shorthands, use shorthands to gain -- let the journal and "wall street journal" make the decision and figure out how to pay my rent and put food on the table. >> ask people, is this country in a good place? no. are you confident the future will be better than the past. no. okay. how are we going to do something about it? don't you want to do something about it? we need to begin to have an honest conversation with ourselves how to we make americanbetter? it's a favor to ourselves. make the country live up to it's promise. a consensus, see itin polls's in not living up to our promise. appeal to people's self-interest and good news, not talking

giving up day jobs. do it in a regular amount of time. interesting also, news does not have to be spinach. lots of ways to make it interesting but ultimately make it consistent with what's good for people. >> first of all, got a free taste of professor glaude's concept. >> a video on that. >> did okay. over here for me, though. richard, ply question is this, though. piggyback on that point not quite as eloquent. a case does sort out facts as a nation. feels asking a lot for citizens to be better at critical thinking. how do we do that? get people to do better what's true and not true? yes, watch fox news as well as nbc? msnbc news? yes, read the "new york times" as well as the "wall street journal"? how do you approach this for an already busy public. >> competition. don't single source your information.

what new jersey doing is important to train people to basically say, here's how you navigate. how you understand. also to ground them. there's got to be a larger purpose. remind people why american democracy is worth keeping. why it's worth having work well and why this is a necessary element. jefferson and others from the get-go talked about informed citizens. we can never assume it's worth it to do this. have a policy that knows what's going and and make good choices. made bad choices and all paid a price for it. appeal to people saying this is doable. not asking you to totally disrupt your lives. >> sitting here thinking a part of this discussion, especially it's parts revolve around don't have the time to do this. life is so fast-paced. i can think of my poor parents and grandparents absent's in

their lives all of these time-saving things we have around us, from iphones to microwave ovens. you know? but they had the time. >> managed it. >> and we don't have the time? which leads me to ask you about the piece we just showed coming in from that high school in new jersey. a very impressive-looking school visually. how do we do this? how do we get young students who are the future, we're not the future. hate to tell you, richard. we're not the future. these young kids in school. how do we get them to say, you know, hey, listen. don't focus so much on memorizing the stuff that you see. focus on thinking about what you see and read and hear. think about it before you jump into an answer. >> that's very -- a teacher, decide what you're testing for. instead of testing for facts necessary, you need a foundation and set up classes about debates, and almost to exercise

those other muscles. you have, get students to challenge one another saying, hold it. that wasn't a fact you just put forward. that was actually an analysis or opinion. i want to challenge what you just did. by the way, you can do it civilly. something you you'd like to teach them to do. there's ways to structure a classroom that the desks of the -- definition is not measurability of facts but measure them and put them top use in a logical way, make an argument to persuade others. >> the new book "bill of obligations" richard haass, thank you very much. we're going to continue richard's book residency "morning joe" book residency tomorrow right here. coming up, new york city mayor eric adams is our guest. a lot to cover with him from crime concerns in the city to asylum seekers sent to new york by republican governors. that is all next on "morning joe."

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is ten minutes before the top of the hour. new york city mayor eric add angst announced last saturday the city will open a fifth relief center for asylum seekers. the new center comes after adam said the city is at a "breaking point" with asylum seekers according to the mayor's office. arriving in the city since last spring the mayor says nearly 30,000 remain in the office, 30 seekers remain in the city's care and he requested aid from the state and the federal government. mayor adams joins us now. >> mr. mayor, thank you for being with us. how serious is the crisis at the border? what pressure is it putting on

you as mayor of new york city? >> when i took a trip to el paso, it's not only el paso, houston, new york, and it's unfair for cities to carry the weight of a national problem. we are going to open four more emergency hotels, and herks, and this is a major financial impact on this city and cities across this country receiving the brunt of it. >> what did you say to the white house officials? >> in coordination, i was told we have an individual coordinating the operation, and as i shared with white house officials, why don't i know who that is? it's about having a real decompression strategy, looking at who is coming in and ensuring that it's really a burden by the

entire country, not just a few cities. just a path that way continues to lead to new york, we have to have a real comprehensive immigration policy. i think the republicans blocked it for many years. we have to come to the table to do so and that's a long term plan. what is the short term plan? if my house is burning, i don't want to hear about fire prevention, i want to put out the fire. >> mayor adams, we talked a lot this week about guns, and, of course, the terrible mass shootings we have seen across the country. talk to us about where things stand right now in the fight against violence, in terms of guns, where there's a sense of a feeling that the police are not

doing enough, and shop owners are hiring private guards to fight back. is that a wise strategy? what can be done? >> it is a wise strategy. people must feel safe. there's a new survey that came out in the transit system where riders have shown they feel much safer in the system, because we did the right thing. 1,200 officers placed in the system and different shifts and zeroing on those who are violent and dealing with mental health illnesses. we had a summit two weeks ago to look at the repeated grand larcenies taking place in stores, and we are taking the initiative so people feel safe. that's what the nypd is doing. we have a real problem with

reresittism. >> talking about summits, one of the things that i think you helped in coming out of that, is that those in the black and brown community that has the disproportionate amount of victims, and i think it's unfair that some people have been labeled like the majority leaders cousins and speaker, they just want to open the doors of jails and let people out, but at the same time we have to stop this violence. talk about how we really must have a synergy of saying you

can't be progressive and keep letting people become victims, but at the same time we are not going to give up ourself liberties in order to -- >> you hit it on the mark. we are fighting about the reforms you see people talking about now, and that has been our life story, and those forums must be matched with public safety. we need to look at what needs to be sure that we can do about recidivism. this is in defense attorneys and prosecutors, and we can seek the justice we deserve with the safety we need. >> i want to talk about democrats in new york in general and how many basically believe

that we cost the democrats the house and we missed on crime, and i just put up a chart, 76% of new york crime is a very important issue to them. how did the entire party miss it so badly in the last election, and cost democrats the house? >> the party, i believe, articulates long term solutions to a problem. that's fine to do so. we should have a long term plan. we should have prevention. but people are saying, what about right now? are we going to intercede with the 16-year-old child stabbed or that mother shot by a random bullet, and i find the party is often reluctant to talk about the success they have had in public safety. democrats supported police and the white house came out with

major dollars around crisis management teams. that was not articulated. i think the party believes if you talk about the proper role and balance of police in cities that all of a sudden you are going to turn back the clock and go back over incarceration, and that's not true. and the new yorkers are concerned about what is happening on the block, and we are not talking to the black. >> to that concern on what is happening on your block, because i have a lot of friends that still do not take the subway, and what do you have to say to new yorkers about the safety of taking the subway these days? >> new york said to us, the customer survey that i believe the numbers are going to be

revealed, they feel it's safer and they feel it's cleaner and less mental illness where people cannot take care of themselves. we took a lot of heat. the reality is everyday new yorkers don't want to see somebody on the subway system or sleeping on their stoop or hallways or atm machines, and they can't take care of themselves, basic needs. we responded to that. 1,200 officers in our subway system. six felony crimes a day on average. 2.9 million people use that system every day. we are going to get rid of the six felonies, but we want to make sure people know 2.9 million of their residents are getting to where they need to go every day because nypd is out there doing their job. >> new york city mayor, eric

adams, thank you for being on this morning. we appreciate it. up next, the united states is leading by example in the effort to equipped ukraine in its fight against russia. how the new plans to send tanks to the war-torn country might lead others to do the same. then the chair of the panel w.h.i.p., dick durham is back with us in just one minute. talk. rooty tooty fresh 'n fruity yep, it's back. for a limited time. the six dollar rooty tooty fresh 'n fruity combo. 2 eggs, 2 bacon strips, and 2 fruit topped pancakes. only from ihop. 2 eggs, 2 bacon strips, and 2 fruit topped pancakes. when a truck hit my car, the insurance company wasn't fair. i didid't t kn whahatmy c caswa, so i called the barnes firm.

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the handling of classified materials and the nation is a serious matter, and as a former vice president of the united states, i can speak from personal experience about the attention that ought to be paid to those materials when you are in office and after you leave office, and clearly that did not take place in this case. but the unequal treatment before the law was troubling to me this week. >> mike pence has been sharing his thoughts on president biden's classified documents, but now we know that he too had classified documents at his home. we will go through the explanation from his team on how the government files got there. plus, ticketmaster got grilled by senate judiciary

committee for the taylor swift debacle. and then we will explain why tanks and the move is about putting pressure on allies as it is about arming the ukrainians. welcome back to "morning joe." it's january 25th. joining us now is the democratic majority w.h.i.p. senator dick durbin of illinois. we welcome you back to the show. what do you make of the classified documents situation with former vice president mike pence. what is going on here? >> it's a good question. i wish i knew the answer. when it comes to members of

congress and classified documents, we go through an elaborate careful process even to read one of these pieces of paper, and the thought of keeping them on our desk to get around to later or taking them home or out of the office is unthinkable at this level. i don't understand what has happened here. there's a clear distinction that i think we should make here. we have three principles, former president trump and vice president pence and president biden where they have classified documents where they should have never been. how should they react? from former president trump, it was obstruction, and i don't have them, and i can keep them and it's none of your business. and the other two were taking a different approach, starting with president biden inviting the government in to take a look

at themselves. >> i have talked on the show about having classified briefings from 1997 and 1998 that i just would never repeat. you just -- there's a mind-set for members of congress, and what i am now starting to hear is well, they handle classified documents in the white house as they do in congress. it's just different. well, senator, it seems to me that it shouldn't be different. it seems to me you, we, when i was in the house, we took care of classified documents pretty well. should not the white house embeau late what congress does?

>> yes, we shouldn't be careless in the documentation that comes from their cooperation. we need to be thoughtful about it if we want to keep these sources safe in helping the united states. >> what do we do about guns? chicago has had an epidemic of gun violence for years, and some of the guns used were not purchased by the people that used the guns, and we have tight gun laws, and we have had two mass shootings in the last couple of days. what is the next step on guns? >> i will say two things about that. first, we have the killing of a police officer last year in chicago. her name was ella french. she was killed with a gun that

had been the sub of a straw purchase, which meant a convicted felon took a personal friend over to indiana and purchased that gun for the felon that used it to kill the police officer. it was a terrible straw purchase death. the community safety act moves in that direction. we need to do more. secondly, our governor led an effort in the illinois general assembly to pass an assault weapon ban. it's interesting because we now have a reaction from sheriffs around the state that say they won't enforce it. we will be the ground zero for this debate in the weeks and months to come. having seen the damage, the violence, that came about in the fourth of july shooting at the

parade in highland park, illinois, this is unthinkable. if anybody believes that's what the founding fathers had in mind historically is off base completely. >> good morning. jonathan here. you have spoke about how serious this matter is, and over the weekend you gave an interview about president biden and you said he should be embarrassed by the situation, and i want to get you to expand upon that a little bit. your thoughts about that with the current occupant of the oval office? what could president biden do now to make it right in this situation? >> i think that president biden has taken the right steps. he has opened his office and opened his home. he basically called all the appropriate federal agencies and

said find what you will, i will stand responsible for it. what a contrast from donald trump that fought his way in court all the way up to an fbi search of mar-a-lago to find there were more documents than reported. if these documents are secret and classified and have importance and sensitive information, they should never be treated the way we have seen either by vice president pence and his staff, the former president or current president. >> back to guns, you said certain elements of legislation have been made in order to correct the straw purchase of guns, and you said it moves in that direction. what does that mean, moves in that direction? this country sits there, a vast majority of people against the open purchase of hand guns that are so available in this country, and what does moves in that direction mean? >> the problem we had with straw

purchases were against the law, but they were characterized as a bookkeeping mistake by the gun shop and the purchaser. so they were treated as misdemeanors and with such low penalties and punishment they were hardly ever prosecuted. now this agreement with senator chris murphy and others that entered into it, makes it a serious offense, as it should be. this notion that i can find a friend to make a purchase when i am illegal in the eyes of the law of making the same purchase, it makes it like the theft of a gun. and young woman lost her life because of that. >> senator, i want to talk to you about another issue and ask you a couple questions. top executives from the ticketing industry were on capitol hill yesterday answering

questions about the fiasco that happened two weeks ago when ticketmaster was unable to handle the unprecedented demand for tickets for taylor swift's upcoming tour. they were unable to access the site for tickets even with a code. are you a swiftie? >> yes. we all are. >> take a look. >> to have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition. you can't have too much consolidation. something that unfortunately for this country, as owed to taylor swift, i will say we know all too well. >> my i suggest ticketmaster look in the mirror and say, i'm the problem, it's me. >> it's a nightmare dressed like

a day dream. i don't think we ought to go there. >> a few million taylor swift fans would respond, this is why we can't have nice things. >> aren't you envious for you it's not. that's all i got to say. >> oh, my god. that was funny. >> taylor swift lyrics out of your mouth. >> that was funny. come on. the president of ticketmaster's parent company, live nation, blamed the problem on bots. >> well, the bots failed to penetrate our system, and the attack caused the slowdown and even a pause in the sales. this is what led to a terrible consumer experience, which we deeply regret. we apologize to the fans and apologize to miss swift. we need to do better and will do better. >> i have no taylor swift

lyrics, but this is something that needs to be done. pearl jam took them on like 15 years ago and lost. people take these entities on and lose because they are monopolies. what can be done? >> first, let me make a point. this was a bipartisan approach to this issue. you can hardly see a glimmer of light between the democratic and republican side of the committee. our committee is going to tackle this, and i am glad they have. what we have seen in the ticketmaster and live nation merger was the creation of a ma

monopoly. it's to the debt straw. democrats and republicans are leading this effort to push for competition. it's long overdue. i thank them for their sponsorship of this committee yesterday, and there will be more. >> what we are talking about, monopolies, and i am curious what your reaction is to the government's reaction against google. finally yesterday the shoe dropped. >> long overdue. we have seen this on capitol hill and we have seen it in washington. these entities have become so big and powerful and so politically affluent that very few people will tackle them. once again, the senate judiciary committee made this major initiative and we will continue to. we have to have accountability in social media. >> chairman of the judiciary

committee, senator dick durbin, thank you very much. >> can i ask a question? >> yes. >> are you going to say, it's me, i'm the problem, it's me. >> no, it's an important question. who should the bears pick as their first draft choice? >> well, they have a good quarterback so that's not necessary. maybe they would pick a quarterback to trade with some other team for another player, but there are several things they need. i would start with some ends that you can count on for justin fields to throw to. >> all right. sounds like a good move. >> thank you, senator. we will move to the war in europe where after getting immense pressure from its nato allies, germany agreed to send much-needed battle tanks to ukraine. german chancellor talked about the hrep yard battle tanks, and

he cited intensive consultations between germany and its western allies. joining us now, we have a top defense official from one of those nato allies, permanent secretary of the estonian ministry of defense. i would like to start with what estonia is doing to help ukraine because there was a big announcement within the week. can you share that with us? >> yes, with pleasure. estonia has been one of the largest supporters of ukraine. last week we had lethal aid, and if you translate that into u.s. terms, it would be 220 billion euros. it's makes us the largest contributor of aid to ukraine. last week, we convened a large

conference that had 11 defense ministers around europe. they pledged the biggest ever package from europe, european allies, and this was a strong message for all the other allies that we need to keep the fight. it's extremely important that ukraine would win this war. i am very happy to see that it's the u.s. and other allies who are keeping this leadership. >> mr. secretary, how important sit that those tanks, the german tanks and also the u.s. tanks are shipped to ukraine? how big of a difference will that make in the months ahead? >> it's going to make a large difference. i would divide it into different chapters. first, it's the battlefield edge. they have units that can advance on the battlefield and make a difference there. more importantly, it's another

chapter in the aid to ukraine. for months tanks have been something that has been sort of forbidden talk, and western allies have been reluctant to give tanks, and now this is something that we have come to and it's a very strong message and hopefully we move the other areas soon. >> there has been frustration from baltic states like your own who are literally on the cutting edge with russia. poland and other front line states look at how slowly britain, france and others have moved. are you feeling better that how even those country that are not on the frontline are supporting ukraine, and they are doing everything they can to help push the russians out? >> to be honest, we have been

quite constant in the encouraging signs, and europe and the u.s. have moved large packages, and there's room to do more. european efforts have been -- ten times or even more less than the estonian efforts. there's clearly room to do more. we have to acknowledge that democracy, mocking your allies is never a good strategy. we need to help them get over hurdles. it's a good example of how we can achieve results when we are focused on the end result. >> finally, mr. secretary, how

important is it -- can you explain to americans how important it is to have finland and sweden and nato, so now as the admiral likes to say, it turns the baltic sea into a nato lake. >> you pretty much explained it. this is the moment where, you know, diplomats actually made it, and it's not only drink champagne, and sweden will turn the baltic sea into the nato's eternal lake. >> thank you. it's our honor to have you on this morning. thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. we greatly appreciate your leadership and the leadership of

estonia. >> absolutely. >> mike barnicle, it's hard to grasp how much this war has changed the geopolitical landscape, especially across russia. you have germany before the war still relying on the united states, relying on other countries for its defense. after the war, germany stepped up and said we're going to have to pay more. in fact, germany's defense budget in the future is going to be larger than russia's now. you look at what other countries have been doing, and even japan now announcing, because they have been spooked by what happened in russia and perhaps what japan might do, and now they are stepping up and saying we are going to step forward and start building our military out so we can be stronger partners. talk about how -- the backfiring

of this against vladimir putin, whether you are talking about militarily, the fact that he completely is surrounded now because of his own doing. you look at his economy. it's just going to be shattered. even europe's dependance on russian oil that was going to keep going up now collapsed. talk about the geopolitical changes over the last year. it's striking. >> joe, not only is it striking but it's ironic. this morning the president of the united states is in the news for misplaced classified documents and we don't know for what years they exists, and they are 30 single pieces of paper, and without joseph r. biden, nothing you just talked about

with ukraine happens. a ground war along the russian/ukrainian border, everybody in europe, all of the nato countries held together by joseph r. biden because he knew he had a sense for how to do this, because of who he is and because of his personality and his character and beliefs. that's one of the big stories about what is happening right now in europe. the fog of war from world war ii still hangs over that particular region of the world, and joe biden -- without joe biden in office doing what he did, and tony blinken along with him, they held together the coalition. >> it does. >> i think you will be seeing historians writing about joe biden the same way historians wrote about harry truman after world war ii, and underestimated at the time but as they looked back they were surprised by the remarkable touch he had

domestically and across the globe. i would guess that when you were in the state department, elise, you could have never imagined a day like this where the germans getting as involved as they are militarily and building up their military budgets and not relying on the united states and others for their defense. >> joe, i have been critical about the way the biden administration mismanaged the withdrawal from afghanistan, but in contrast they have done a good job holding this coalition together, and not getting in too deep but not allowing the russians to just do whatever they want. it's been an example that alliances matter, diplomacy matters. we need to have strong relations with our closest allies, and joe biden has forged that alliance successfully. >> to mike's point about the president forming this alliance,

in some ways now comes the hard part because he had to keep it together, whether it's in the united states or in europe, it has to last years. these tanks, the officials don't think they will be ready for the battlefield in ukraine for a year or more. that shows they are girting for a long fight here and will need to keep the alliance together even as the economic pressures mount. >> we want to take a moment to look at the morning papers. we will begin in mississippi where they are reporting on how a january 6th rioter was identified. the fbi was able to match up video of the man's large stomach tattoo -- >> this is a warning for donny deutsch, but go ahead. >> he was sentenced to 78 months in prison for assaults officers during the capitol attack. in west virginia, the charleston

gazette said they would allow people with carry permits. the new haven register reports lego is moving its north american headquarters out of connecticut and will be based in boston next year. all full-time employees will be offered relocation assistance. and then in florida, the bradenton herald, all books will need to be approved by a

certified media specialist, and otherwise teachers and librarians could be charged with a third degree felony. >> what is going on in florida? >> a gaggle of stupid people executing it, it seems to be, joe. it's really bad on so many different levels. in some ways, it's a distraction. people are appealing to folks' fears and grievances and this is one example of it. >> nasty. >> and it seems extreme, and it's just one more thing at the end of the day will back fire on republicans. this scares the hell out of the people that used to be republicans. i talk about the atlanta suburbs and the philly suburbs and detroit suburbs, and this is where you have people saying what is going on with the republican party?

why do they keep glorifying this type of behavior? >> it reveals the contradiction intention. you have the same folk talking about less government in our lives and wanting to regulate at every turn in this sort of way, right? this is nonsense we are seeing going on, and it's rooted in hypocrisy. >> less government in our lives, but more book bans. less government in our lives, but more cancelation of classes that actually examine our history. less government in our lives and yet actually laws now that are talking about stopping 10-year-old girls from being able to flee their states after being raped by a relative or somebody else, so they can go and make a decision with their parents, with their preachers, with their loved ones about

their future. this is hand -- >> this is your republican party. >> again, not to be a broken record, but let me be a broken record, this is why they keep losing. still ahead on "morning joe," the secret service is out with a new report detailing some of the trends the agency is seeing when it comes to mass attacks across the country. nbc's julia ansley joins us. plus, growing questions about the artificial intelligence writing program. do the opportunities outweigh the possible problems? that conversation is straight ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ my name is austin james. as a musician living with diabetes, fingersticks can be a real challenge. that's why i use the freestyle libre 2 system. with a painless, one-second scan, i know my glucose numbers without fingersticks.

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joining us now, former new york city mayor, bill de blasio. >> the first question. what happened to the giants? you are still responsible for all things new york. what happened to the giants this weekend? >> give them credit. really a hell of a season. was not quite enough, but that's a team on the move. >> you are a red sox fan. what is wrong with the red sox? >> lack of identity. lack of direction. what are they doing? why are they doing it? if this were a political campaign, you would say what is your rational? >> if this was the gop, it would be what is your identity? they don't know. what are you doing? let's turn to something serious now. we have been doing the show for 15 years. you have been in public service for 20, 25, 30 years. >> you have been on the show for us for 15 years. >> it seems to me we used to in

the late '90s from time to time hear about great tragedies like columbine, and a couple years later would hear about a tragedy in a theater in aurora, colorado, and then a tragedy on the virginia tech campus. these tragedies come every day now in america. i don't know if you saw over the past couple of days, but we have been showing these pew studies that show since sandy hook murders from guns have gone up 75%. murders from guns have gone up 50% in the past five years. this is an epidemic. the speed of it, the pace of it is accelerating exponentially. we got to do something. what do we do? >> joe, look, what is so interesting, you mention the pew study, and pew did one of its public opinion surveys and found

overwhelmingly americans -- republicans and democrats almost equally want to see real efforts to keep guns out of the hands of folks with mental health challenges, and here we in monterey park and half moon bay, horrible examples of what happens when folks have grievances and mental health challenges and are coming apart and have access to a gun. we can do it at a state and local level, and even if washington is paralyzed, and you can strengthen the red gun laws. train the police on how to handle mental health conditions more, and also empower the police to implement the red flag laws. buffalo is a good example, they had the red flag laws but police

were not given the training and support. rather than let's process a guy and send him out, no, we will do aggressive follow-up and make sure that guy never gets a gun. that did not happen in the case of buffalo. we have lot more we have to do to make the red flag laws come to life. >> as we deal with the red flag laws and with training, we also have to deal with mental health. i think people are trying to look at just one easy way out rather than deal with all of this, and at the same time, you and i have dealt with it for many years before and after you were mayor, not robbing people of their civil liberties while we are dealing with this. you have the far right that wants to go back to things that rob us of our liberties, and you have the far left going to where there's no kind of system of all

of accountability, and neither are right. >> i agree with you, rev. in the case of mental health in particular, right now we are asking police officers all over the country to deal with mental health challenges without training, without support. they are not doctors, but they actually are the people who often deal with the mental health crisis first. that can be remedied. we are also not empowering loved ones, family members, to feel that they can report something. we finally have this national hotline, 9-8-8 in new york, where a loved one can call and say my son, my nephew, my brother is acting kind of strange, and they are saying threatening things, what do i do? we can do those things within the context of protecting civil liberties. another thing we did in new york, when there's a mental health challenge out there,

don't send the police but send the professionals, and then if something is trending towards violence, then send the police immediately. i think the point is not to get hopeless. we have a little bit of progress in washington last year. >> yeah. >> bipartisan progress. that's something. but the real actions at the state and local level, and it's what we can do to empower people and police to do more. >> i have been over the past couple of days talking about the pew poll or the pew study, and we have been talking about murders because in the last couple of days there are mass killings happening, and in california there's another part of the story, and it underlines a simple truth, where there are more guns there are more deaths by guns. you can look state by state by state, and it's true in every case. it seems, though, there's another part of this, and the rev talked about mental health.

i have not talked about suicides by guns. that same pew study showed that while there were almost 20,000 murders in 2020 by guns, there was an extraordinary high number of suicides by guns. why? because the guns were in the house. >> absolutely, joe. i mean, one of the things -- i think we need to talk about this, in this discussion, it's not only red flag laws and licensing, but when are we going to address the fact that there are 400 million guns in the country. how are we going to address the manufacturers flooding the market with guns. we know this disproportionately impacts resource-deprived communities. we have to deal with the mental health and police need to be empowered in order to find those folks that present dangers to the public. we need to hold corporations

responsible who are flooding the market with the weapons flooding the market. >> ironically, a lot of public money is backing up those manufacturers. the public sector buys a huge amount of their products for public safety agencies, pension funds, and there's no accountability being demanded in return. this is an area separate from washington where a lot of action could be taken. demand more reasonable accountability of the manufacturers, or you can take your business elsewhere. >> yeah. former new york city mayor, bill de blasio. thank you for coming. coming up, frustration is brewing in this country over an age-old practice that some consumers say is getting out of

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that will be $12. >> and keep the change, please. >> we're not allowed to accept tips. >> not allowed to accept tips. >> your change is eight. thank you. >> thank you. bye. >> you tip a flight attendant? >> i tip everybody, that's my philosophy. it's not tipping i believe in, it's over tipping. >> exactly. >> there you go. steve martin's character in the

1990 comedy "my blue heaven" with his philosophy in tipping. >> you believe in over tipping, too. >> i do. but this next story, the convenience has some people feeling frustrated because how it's affecting tipping. the ap says some people are tired of being left to ask gratuity for a muffin. experts say the digital screens used to process payments can leave consumers pressured to leave gratuity because your generosity or lack there of is laid bare. the barista in philadelphia says

tips helps to cover his rent, and he added it's hard to sympathize with consumers who are able to afford pricey coffee drinks but complain about tipping. >> what do you think? >> well, i am fine with it. i just don't like employers that set up this so they don't have to pay as much. i think people -- i think the minimum wage, of course, should be raised at all times, you know, to match inflation and match the way the economy is. i think tipping is the right thing. >> i agree. >> i like giving tips. if you can't, that's okay. >> if somebody is a waiter, and you go through a meal and everything, you know, and you give a 25% tip, that's great. but if you go by a rock, and somebody else, here, tip me for

i just reached to get this rock, and you are like, okay, i will give you 15% i guess, because 12 of you are staring at me while i am holding my rock. >> it's hard to get people to work. >> i took my kids to play put-put a couple weeks ago. >> that's nice. >> i always let my kids win. >> you did not let them win. they give everybody a participation trophy. >> yeah, i don't let my kids win. it will help them down the road. >> yeah, whatever. i went three rounds for put-put, and they give you the golf ball and you are going to pay it, and

it's like, gratuity? >> they are cleaning -- you have to tip them. >> i do tip them. i tip everybody. i am like steve martin there, right. >> you better be. >> consumers are getting frustrated because you go buy a rock and -- >> joining us now -- >> i am not done. you always interrupt and it makes me sad. it happens all the time, jonathan. >> yeah, that seems to be the change in the last couple of years, more and more industries and services are looking for the tip, and it's on the screen a tip for things you didn't tip for before. the bigger issue here is wages and these are people trying to make extra money or employers trying to cut cost hoping the employee will make it up in tips. and my default is to tip more than i should, but i understand why some people would be frustrated, because they feel like it's an added cost to those

trying to buy a muffin. coming up, from big tips to bigger debt. we will talk about the fight over the nation's borrowing limit when steve rattner joins the table next on "morning joe."

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speaking of tipping, let's bring in a guy that will tip 5% on everything. whether the service staff deserves it or not. >> he's a big tipper. >> speaking of former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve bratner. he's a big tipper, i know. so steve, we're not talking about tipping, we're talking about debt ceilings. and you have brought charts for the kids. you want to ask him about tipping first? >> i do. >> what do you think about this. this whole tipping ap article? >> look, i'm with you guys. i find it an enormous pain in the neck to go into some store

and buy a cup of coffee, buy a muffin, and then be expected to tip. i think what they should simply do -- but i am also very sympathetic to the workers. i would be in favor of raising prices, paying the workers more and let's get rid of tipping. interestingly, there was a group of high-end restaurants, they eliminated tipping, they raised their prices, nobody liked it, and they went back to tipping. so maybe we're just stuck with it. >> okay, well there you go. >> that's kind of the bottom line right there. >> and again -- the workers deserve it, because, again, especially when the wages are so low. but steve rattner, let's talk about now the reason that you came, that is, of course, the debt ceiling. and i mean, same as it ever was, same as it ever was. >> you didn't have me here to talk about tipping? all right, i'll talk about the debt ceiling. so, look, we're having this big

debt ceiling fight and the republicans are acting a little bit like the scene in casablanca, they've suddenly discovered gambling is going on. but in fact, that's not really the case, and it's not really the biden administration that has created this problem. if you look back in history, what you can see, and on the left, you'll see the amount of debt added by each president per year to adjust for presidents who have been there longer or shorter. and you can see that, yes, we've added a lot of debt during the biden administration. we had covid. we had the american rescue plan and so forth. but actually, under trump, we added even more debt per year than we did. so it's a little bit hypocritical for the republicans to now be crying foul. and you can see, in fact, we have been adding more debt over the last three presidents. we had a financial crisis, we had covid, and spending is somewhat out of control and that's a subject that we ought to really get our arms around. and then on the right, the real measure of our financial health is how well we do in terms of debt relative to the size of our economy. and that's also been growing.

you can see it's grown under almost every president. but interestingly, the two presidents under which it hasn't grown is bill clinton, who had a budget surplus, if you'll remember, and joe biden who has brought the deficit down in large part because covid has ebbed. but nonetheless, he has had a better record than trump, who has been exhorting the republicans to vote against this debt ceiling increase than trump did. >> looks like biden has a better record on the right than anybody. >> in that particular measure, he does. yes. he has brought the deficit down a good bit. again, in fairness, covid has ebbed. but nonetheless, from a financial health point of view, we're in better health than we were two years ago. >> all right. steve rattner, thank you very much for coming on this morning. and he is a big tipper. coming up, we'll go live to the white house where nbc's peter alexander is standing by. a preview of the presidents day ahead and what the administration is saying now that joe biden isn't the only former vice president to have

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♪ ♪ this... is a glimpse into the no-too-distant future of lincoln. ♪ ♪ it's what sanctuary could look like... feel like... sound like... even smell like. more on that soon. ♪ ♪ the best part? the prequel is pretty sweet too. ♪ ♪ welcome back the "morning joe." it's the top of the hour. that's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast as we take a live look at los angeles. 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. welcome back to the fourth hour of "morning joe." jonathan lemire, elise jordan,

and andy claude jr. are back with us for the hour and we have a lot to get to, including the developing news that the biden administration is reversing course, now preparing to send abrams tanks to ukraine. nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons will join us with the latest, including why the move ratchets up the pressure on the allies. also ahead, growing questions about the advanced artificial intelligence tool, chat gbt. we'll show you how it works and how it could change education as we know it. and later this hour, a trio of incidents involving animals at the dallas zoo now has federal officials investigating. we'll have the latest on this growing mystery. but we start with the growing concern over the security of the country's top secrets, after the revelation that yet another one-time member of the executive branch was restoring classified documents at their private home.

former vice president mike pence joined joe biden and donald trump yesterday as the latest high-level official to become embroiled in the controversy over the handling of classified information. let's bring in nbc news chief white house correspondent, peter alexander, live at the white house with the latest. peter? >> hey, mika, good morning. a lawyer for former vice president mike pence says that pence was unaware the documents were in his indiana home and that he is fully cooperating, but these revelations, they do complicate republicans' efforts to attack president biden for his handling of classified documents and they certainly make clear the government's system for labeling and tracking classified materials appears to be broken. with at least one republican calling the issue an epidemic. this morning, the controversy over classified documents is growing. a lawyer for former vice president mike pence found what he called a small number of classified documents last month during a search of pence's indiana home.

according to these letters to the national archives obtained by nbc news. the lawyer says that the documents were, quote, inadvertently boxed and transported to pence's home when he left office, adding that pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence. pence has repeatedly denied taking classified documents to his home. when asked by abc news last november -- >> i did not. >> reporter: pence recently criticized president biden for the act to have taking classified documents after leaving office. >> the handling of classified materials and the nation's secrets is a very serious matter. i can speak from personal experience about the attention that ought to be paid to those materials, when you're in office and after you leave office and clearly, that did not take place in this case. >> pence's lawyer says the search was done january 16th after classified materials were found president biden's home. on january 18th, they notified the national archives and the

next day, fbi agents collected the documents. the revelations come adds special counsels are already investigating president biden and former president trump's handling of classified documents, following the discovery of materials at their homes and other locations. now, the chorus of criticism from both parties is getting louder. >> you've got trump, you've got pence, you've got biden. what became a political problem, you know, for republicans, is now a national security problem for the country. >> there's a systemic problem with former occupants of the presidency and vice presidency having classified information at their homes, when it shouldn't be there. mr. trump defending pence, who he has regularly attacked, posting, mike pence is an innocent man. leave him alone. so the immediate question here, whether attorney general merrick garland appoint another special counsel for the pence case? so far, garland isn't commenting. pence's spokesperson tells me

that no other classified materials were found at the office of pence's political organization and that pence's team has not heard from the justice department since it handed over the documents last week. mika, we should note that we reached out to the offices of the last three presidents, presidents obama, bush, and clinton, and they all told us that all the classified materials from their times in office were turned over to the national archives, mika. >> nbc's peter alexander live at the white house, thank you very much. jonathan lemire, i know you've been reporting on this. just your thoughts as we now have a third former administration official, high-level, mike pence, who was critical of joe biden, until it was him. but it seems to me that there's a process issue here. one thing sort of uncovered during the conversations on the show today is that for members of congress, you go into a scif. you take your devices off, you look at the documents, you leave the scif, you leave everything behind, and then you get your devices back.

there's a whole process. it sounds like there's less so of one at the white house and also that the oval office is considered a scif, as well. and i just wonder, if the process when someone leaves their high-level position at the white house needs to be shoerd up. >> it sure seems this way. this has become an epidemic of people mishandling classified information. elsewhere in the white house, you can't have classified material. now, it should still be tracked and they clearly need to have better safeguards in place within the building, certainly at the end of the administration. that's where this is proven. i do think that we've been making this point all morning, that we should note that the contrast is even stacker between how president biden and vice president pence have handled this correctly, discovered materials, then you notified doj. donald trump is the outlier. he's the one that's mishandling this. elise, i want to get your take on this. you're the only one at the white

house that has handled and packed up classified information, that we know of, eddie. what have you experienced with this? how could this have gone so wrong, so often? >> i am honestly baffled. when i was at the national security counsel at the end of the bush administration, the office was a scif. you had to use the -- you had to will it like a safe to get in, locked up, everything was in there. you left your phone, you know, before you went into the situation room. that was a scif. i looked at how documents went to the president's desk and were handled and were taken by someone on the staff secretary's team or, you know, all of the paper flow was managed so carefully, that i don't really buy this argument that the white house is more free flowing and it would have been easier to take something. it does sound like it was simply sloppiness. >> but, if i could just -- i mean, eddie glaude or jonathan lemire, at this point, now that

mike pence's name has been brought up, because i was a little concerned to bring this up earlier in the week, but now we've got, we've got three examples and they cross party lines. there is trump, totally different. he took documents, wouldn't give them back, and we know he even put some in his mouth at the oval office. we'll put him over there. because that's just -- the whole thing's crazy and possibly criminal. you've got pence and biden. who immediately handed over their documents upon discovery. i have to tell you that everyone's acting so shocked, like, what could it be? how could this ham? there are hundreds of people working in the white house, there are different offices, different administration members, and boxes and boxes and boxes of documents that have to make the transition during the transition to power. and things have to go to the national archives, they have to go -- i can see how this would happen, unless there was a clear process perhaps congress could come up with it, where documents

are handled by a certain office before they go to a home of a soon-to-be former administration official. it seems to me like there's a need for something like this, eddie? >> well, mika, i think you're right, but i would also say, given that description, it leads me to ask the question, then, why haven't we seen this more often, right? people have been careful. we haven't had this kind of controversy a lot. >> well, i actually think that people haven't looked! >> that very well could be the case. >> this is what's happening now, is that people are going, oh, my gosh! could i have something? and so far, we've come up with two pretty high-profile people who happen to have -- they may not be unbelievably classified information in the documents right now. they may end up being public information, but they are marked "classified" and they're in the wrong place. so yeah, more to come in my opinion. >> and ap reporting that former president carter had to return

classified documents as well. >> exactly. >> yes, i think we need to address the politics. i want to be very clear, there's the politics of this and the legal side of this. we can make the distinction in terms of the politics with regards to pence and president biden and former president trump, the special counsel is going to make some serious distinctions here. and whether the legal jeopardy will evidence itself with regards to trump, that will be decided. not by virtue of our discussing around the table or the politics of it all, but by the law, it seems to me. >> i think that's fair. the biden administration is reversing course, now preparing to send abrams tanks to ukraine, according to senior officials. well, not official as of yet. the decision to send roughly a couple of dozen tanks to the ukrainians to aid in their defense could be announced as soon as today. the tanks would not be immediately available for use and will take months to arrive with several more months of training expected after that. earlier today, german chancellor

olaf scholz announced during a meeting of his cabinet that germany will supply 14 leopard tanks to ukraine. joining us now with more is chief nbc news chief international correspondent, keir simmons. and keir, are all of these tanks from different countries going to come with a three to four to five to six-month delay? don't they need weapons now? >> that's a good question. >> and we don't know the answer, how quickly the tanks can be supplied. one thing i think we can say is that the numbers that you're talking about there will not be the numbers that we see. and that's because of this. listen, mika, the germans have been telling me that they would not agree for their leopard tanks to be sent by them or other countries, unless the u.s. sent abrams tanks. they are now waiting for washington to make that announcement, as you mentioned. that looks like that's going to come from president biden today. that is stunning, an enormous

reversal. it is a moment where it may be that historians consider it to be a tipping point, a turning point. and here's why. just take a look at a map of where these german leopard ii tanks are in europe. there are hundreds in different countries. ukraine, neighboring poland has 250. spain has more than 300. finland, 200. you can imagine that while germany is sending 14 leopard ii tanks and america is saying it's going to send its abrams and maybe they'll take some time to arrive, if other countries across europe and already the poles have been saying that they would send the leopard 2 tanks to ukraine, if all of these -- if these other countries really start to send tanks in substantial numbers, that's a big deal. combined with the other heavy weaponry that is being sent now. of course, again, there are questions how fast can they be sent, how many will be sent? there are also questions about escalation. the russians are furious.

the foreign office in moscow saying that this is part of a pre-planned war by nato, describing it as blatantly escalating. and in fact, dmitry peskov at the kremlin saying that these tanks will burn, just like the others. so this is an extraordinary diplomatic moment in which president biden has made a decision, our own courtney kube at the pentagon just says that just last week, she was being told that this decision wouldn't be made this way. president biden making this decision to send americans, freeing up the possibility for the germans to say, well, we are really united and the german chancellor has been talking to his parliament. we are united, we're acting in a united matter. and what happens in the weeks and months ahead will be, you want to watch, because we'll see whether it starts to get towards hundreds of tanks.

>> we just heard from the german chancellor earlier today and the white house just advised that president biden speaking at noon, expected to make the announcement about the u.s. tanks going there. at this point, every time the allies have offered more assistance to ukraine, and peskov uses some sort of apocalyptic rhetoric, but the face of the war hasn't changed very much. russia still isn't engaging with nato allies, but it also seems that a move like this, sending tanks that aren't going to arrive for months if not year, this is the allies preparing for a very long conflict. what are the concerns about keeping this alliance together for the duration? >> i don't know how long it's going to take to send these tanks, obviously. there are the abrams, the american tanks, long-term, and they're difficult to use by another country that hasn't been trained. but look at the 250 that are in poland, how quickly can those be

sent. and here's the crucial thing. there's an alliance of countries, the uk, poland, estonia, the netherlands, that have argued last week that what you need to do is equip ukraine to go on the offensive and win back territory. and the thinking, privately is, some of it even openly, is that what you need to do is you need to allow the ukrainians to threaten crimea. that that's the only way to force president putin to the negotiating table and all of this is about what will happen when the negotiations happen, and when those negotiations will happen now. of course, one of the concerns is this question of escalation. and that's one of the reasons why the germans have been so reticent and plainly, the biggest fear about escalation would be nuclear threats by the russians. the germans think in that trip by the german chancellor to see president xi of china last year, that he persuaded president xi to tell president putin not to make those nuclear threats.

so president putin, if he makes those nuclear threats or worse, god forbid, uses nuclear weapons, faces losing potentially the support of china, maybe india, maybe saudi arabia, maybe south africa. it isn't necessarily a simple choice for president putin, and certainly not, of course, not a simple choice for the world. >> nbc's keir simmons, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. we'll see you soon. and some of the other stories we're following this morning, the los angeles area was hit by an estimated 4.2 magnitude earthquake this morning. the quake was followed by a 3.2 aftershock a few minutes later. thankfully, the los angeles fire department says that they have no reports of damage or injuries after conducting a 400-square-mile survey of the area. still, scary. pope francis is criticizing laws that criminalize homosexuality. during an interview with the associated press yesterday, the pope said, god loves all of his

children and, quote, being homosexual isn't a crime. he also called on catholic bishops to welcome lgbtq people into the church, saying those who are in favor of criminalizing homosexuality need to undergo a process of change. and walmart is raising its minimum wage by about 17%. starting in march, store employees will make $14 to $19 an hour. currently they make between $12 and $18. the move will affect nearly 340,000 workers, about 21% of the retail giants' workforce. good for you, walmart. coming up on "morning joe," we'll have the latest on the string of mass shootings in california, including new details about the suspect arrested in half moon bay. this as an alarming new secret service report out this morning looks into what drives these mass attacks. we'll delve into that straight ahead on "morning joe." into that ahead on "morning joe.

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22 past the hour. vice president kamala harris will travel to her home state of california today to honor the victims killed in the monterey park mass shooting. she will lay a wreath at the memorial and meet with the victims' families. a gunman opened fire at a dance studio on saturday night, killing 11 people and injuring nine others who were celebrating the lunar new year. and we are learning more this morning about the mass shooting that happened at half moon bay. the suspect in the killing of seven farm workers was previously accused by a roommate of trying to suffocate him with a pillow. that's according to court documents. the 66-year-old suspect was arrested two hours after monday's shooting. he had a temporary restraining

order filed against him back in 2013. his roommate and co-worker at the time told a judge the suspect threatened to kill him after he quit his job and then attacked him. nbc news's senior national correspondent, kate snow, has the latest on the country's epidemic of gun violence. >> they lost their lives -- >> reporter: overnight, vigils in half moon bay and monterey park, california. >> i think the last two days, three days, have just been so difficult for us. >> it's very frustrating. >> reporter: across the country, grief, despair, anger. >> it was really hard not to cry, because all i thought was, what is happening, what has happened to our community. >> reporter: in just the past four days, eight mass shootings. the latest leaving three people dead and one injured in north carolina, according to the robison county sheriff's office, a suspect is in custody. three of the most recent shootings in california, a state considered to have the toughest gun laws in the nation.

but that hasn't stopped the violence. >> this problem isn't unique to our state, but it is unique to our nation. this has to end. it must end. >> according to the gun violence archive, in the first few weeks of 2023, at least 73 people have been killed in 40 mass shootings across the country, compared to 27 at this point last year. that's any shooting with at least four people shot. there have been more mass shootings than days in 2023. >> one happens and then within a week, there's two more. we call that social contagion, where somebody sees somebody do that and suddenly that feels like an answer for them as well. >> nationally, politicians don't often agree on solutions, but the giffords law center points to progress. in 2022, president biden signed a birp bill that gives grants to states for red flag laws, enhances background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds, and funds

mental health services. 21 states and washington, d.c. passed some kind of bill aimed at gun safety, though dozens of other bills in state legislatures throughout the country did not pass. >> i do think we're making some progress. it's slow, but i think it's coming. >> we need to come together and we need action to stop this violence. >> nbc's kate snow with that report. with at least 40 mass shootings in the u.s. so far this year, the secret service is now trying to teach communities how to prevent the next attack. the agency best known for protecting presidents has just released a new report on mass attacks in public places, examining data over a five-year period. and one of the key findings, one quarter of mass attackers are driven by conspiracy theories and hateful ideologies. joining us now, nbc news homeland security correspondent, julia ainsley. julia, what more does this report reveal?

>> well, one thing, mika, i was just so struck by kate's report, because this report looks at mass shootings or really any attacks with any weapon that injured three or more people in a public space, between 2016 and 2020. and they counted 173 attacks. that is far fewer than one per day over those five years. and now kate's reporting is showing that we have had more of these kind of events than days so far in 2023. so, first, just wanted to put that in perspective. but their findings, looking at these five years showed that hateful ideologies or conspiracy theories, whether that be anti-semitism, anti-government, misogyny or racism drove perpetrators of mass attacks for at least one quarter of the attacks over that time period. and we know that since 2020, a lot of those hateful ideologies and the hate speech online has just grown, as well as those conspiracy theories. the other thing they found,

though is that the primary driver, the primary motivators for attackers were personal grievances. maybe they lost their job or a roeptic relationship. and i spoke with the expert who runs our national threat assessment about what you can do to prevent people with personal greens grievances, people who have had personal grievances since the beginning of time. and she basically said, look, there's no way to just fix this. there's no perfect red flag, there's no if this, then this will happen. but basically, they're trying to alert communities, whether that's law enforcement, mental health, social workers, all the way down to teachers or maybe just, you know, roommates, like you saw in this case, to look out for key signs, if someone might be planning an attack, day found that one third of the attackers actually had plenty of evidence showing that they were planning the attack, to look out for people with drawing, and to try to spot signs in your communities and get resources to

people before they carry out these terrible attacks. they also looked at weapons, mika, and they found that obviously, the vast majority of these cases, over 120 of those 173 attacks were using firearms and that a third of those used long guns, which we would consider semiautomatic or automatic guns. and obviously, they were more successful when they used guns. they had at least a more than 80% fatality rate when they used guns. when they used other weapons like knives, it was less than a 50% chance that someone would be killed. a lot of questions for communities here, as well as policy makers in washington. >> good morning, julia. this is eddie glaude. this is such an important story, especially given what we saw in monterey park, where i believe he had issues with his ex-wife. so there were some domestic issues there. but what do we do with the broader kind of cultural malaise that seems to surround this. it seems to me that it cuts much deeper and how do we address that? of course, note the signs. but how do we address the kind

of cultural crisis that it seems that we find ourselves in that sets the stage for such mass murder? >> you know, i asked that very question. are we sicker now as a society than we used to be? and i guess the glimmer of hope here is that there are more than 20,000 people today who were watching the secret service present an online report on their study, something that they said that fewer than 10,000 people would have tuned in to something like this years ago. but there's so much interest, there's so much worry from people in their communities, whether they be law enforcement officers or teachers, that they want to look out for these signs. so there's at least hope there, that there are enough concerned citizens that want to do something about this. whether or not there are key steps that can be taken, i think that that's a harder question. >> nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley. thank you very much for your reporting this morning.

and still ahead on "morning joe," scientists discover something about the earth's inner core that's an actual plot to a disaster move. don't worry, the world's not ending, i don't think. we'll dig into that story. plus, microsoft is betting big on chat gpt. we'll explain what that is and how it could impact our lives, next. and how it could impact our lives, next >> tech: cracked windshield? make it easy and schedule with safelite, because you can track us and see exactly when we'll be there. >> woman: i have a few more minutes. let's go! >> tech vo: that's service that fits your schedule. go to safelite.com. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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can't wait 'til i turn 65! aarp medicare advantage plans, only from unitedhealthcare. take advantage now at uhc.com/medicare 34 past the hour. a live look at san francisco for you this morning, with traffic already crossing the bridges. millions of people across the country are experiencing terrible weather, from heavy snow to pounding rain and devastating tornadoes. nbc news correspondent maggie vespa has the latest on how these storms are wreak havoc from region-to-region. >> this morning, millions across the south waking up to a trail of damage from a series of reported tornadoes. louisiana hit overnight, leaving three hospitalized. heavy rain and intense winds ripping apart homes and flooding

streets with debris. >> residents near houston out surveying the wreckage. tornadoes injuring multiple of people there, too. >> the bab windows blew out of the house and we started seeing stuff flying past the house. >> reporter: homes and businesses throughout the region in pieces. cars nearly flipped over on front lawns. this house ripped over, its kitchen visible from the street. >> 15 structures damaged. >> reporter: in nearby baytown, first responders rushing to help after a gas line ruptured and caught fire. >> reporter: in hard-hit pasadena, texas, more than 70 animals were sheltered from a shelter that sustained severe damage. the tornadoes also wreaking havoc on the roads, with this semi-truck left completely sideways. and this transformer completely igniting and catching fire. it comes as about 80 million people across the country are waking up to winter weather alerts. the northeast bracing for even more snow later today, from a system that already struck the plains. heavy powder sweeping on to

campus at the university of oklahoma. meanwhile in arkansas, drivers cautiously navigating slick roads, and in north texas, inch after inch of snow falling on the city of amarillo, with the storm moving east, millions preparing for a new round of severe winter weather. >> thanks to nbc's maggie vespa for that report. now to this. microsoft recently announced it's set to make a multi-billion-dollar investment into the artificial intelligence company open ai, the parent company of chatgpt, a search bot that responds with full text and analysis on a wide range of different questions. "morning joe" reporter daniella pierre bravo has a look at the new technology and what implications it may have as it px more accessible. daniella? >> good morning, mika. after chatgpt came out last november, it has attracted more than a million users. it was originally intended as a

research preview version for developers of artificial intelligence. that's referred to as ai for short. but its ability to mimic human language and provide analysis has unintentionally made it a perfect tool to use in classrooms. take a look. imagine solving writer's block or planning an entire news interview all in a matter of seconds. those are just a few capabilities behind the new text generator bot, chatgpt. so let's say "morning joe" interviewed george washington. >> let's try it. "morning joe" interviews george washington by using a time machine. so it won't get mad at us that this is not possible. let's see if it will do that. here we go. >> wow, it already knows who -- what "morning joe" is, who our hosts are, how we would ask questions, all of it. >> yeah, yeah. >> and apparently george washington, what he would say. >> yeah, it's talking about it, it's saying george washington says it's strange to be here,

because of this time machine. we have it all here, "morning joe" is interviewing about the leadership during the revolutionary war. maybe this is an interesting topic to learn more about. >> reporter: ivan malik is a professor of entrepreneur at the wharton school of business. he says chatgpt is a tipping point for ai and just the beginning of major changes to how we work and learn. >> i introduced it to my class on a tuesday. i teach entrepreneurship, by the end of the class, somebody had already created a complete working demo for their start-up idea using a code lever that they'd never used before, it creates twitter code, by the end of the day, they had offers from venture capitalists. by my next class, they had used it for all kinds of things i hadn't expected. ideas for a marketing project that they were doing, asking them to explain a concept they didn't understand like they were a 10-year-old. really amazing to see it actually in use. it's really transforming a lot of things very quickly. >> while the program can be used

for things like writing code, the technology is raising concerns for some educators. jeff dolvin is the acting chair of the department of english at princeton university. >> i think there's a lot of worry about what it's going to mean for our classrooms. >> have you gotten together to talk about what the future of this bot might look like and how it might disrupt your classrooms? >> i think we're really at the beginning of reckoning with this. what is education going to be like if people don't need to write for their jobs? which has always -- that's a founding assumption of education for hundreds and hundreds of years. >> i think this chatgpt as a technology is incredible and exciting, but at the same time, it's like opening a pandora's box, where there's lots of things that might happen, and we just need to enter this future with new technologies responsibly. >> edward is a princeton university student and the

creator behind gptzero, a program that detects ai-generated writing. >> and how long did it take you to build the technology? >> i really just coded out the app over a few days at my local coffee shop, and a bunch of free time over break, and i was like, why don't i build it out so people can use it. >> you coded it and then a few weeks after that, it went viral? >> when i put it out, i expected at best a few dozen people, the day after i woke up in the morning and i was completely blown away. over 23,000 teachers have signed up, from over 40 states and over 30 countries around the world. i'm definitely not for these blanket bans of chatgpt all across the board, because they don't work. ai is here to stay and is the future. and we just need to enter this future responsibly and not blindly. and we sort of have to build a safeguard, so it's actually used responsibly. >> this is a perfect plagiarism tool. it's great for many other things, but also really good at

creating essays that are plausible, and as of right now, basically undetectable. >> and while ethics around chatgpt's use in the classroom are questioned, mollick says that the technology has implications far beyond academia. >> i think the real question is, what do jobs look like in the future? a vast majority of the work that we do, especially sort of, you know, mba student graduate work, college graduates, is sort of analytical and writing work. what happens when you have a system that does all of that? >> reporter: as far as the concerns of plagiarism in classrooms, an open ai spokesperson told me that they are actually engaging with educators across the country to find ways to mitigate the misuse. in fact, they said that they are actively researching a tool to help identify text generated by chatgpt. it actually took them a little bit by surprise how viral the program has become since it came out. it is also important to note, though, as well, that the professors we spoke to as well as students like edward are also finding ways to use the bot to enhance their learning in the

classroom. mika? >> wow. raising so many questions, morning joe reporter, daniella pierre bravo, thank you very much. let's talk about this. let's bring into this conversation, technology columnist for "the new york times," kevin russe, and wall street journal reporter, who writes about start-ups and venture capital. and i'll start with you, because microsoft betting big here. what's -- i guess, what is the risk, what is the gain? looks like a lot of gain. >> yeah, i think microsoft is reportedly many talks to invest or they've decided to invest up to $10 billion into chatgbt, and it's essentially a bet that artificial intelligence will reshape almost every line of their business. if you take microsoft bing as an example, they said they're going to integrate chatgpt technology into bing. not many users use bing compared to google search, but there is a world in which they integrate

the technology into bing and people are able to ask a question on bing and they can get a sort of curated response instead of a list of queries, which is what we're used to, today. so they're investing a lot of money, but i think they see a really big payoff to sort of having a proprietary hold on the technology that open ai has developed. >> so, kevin, in your piece, you talk about the brilliance and weirdness of chatgpt. that it feels different, smarter, weirder, more flexible. it can write jokes, some of which are actually funny. i mean, when you look at this concept and all the different ways it could go, and i want to talk to eddie about education, but kevin, are we looking at a future potentially where one does not need to write or think? >> well, write, maybe, think, less so. these bots, they're not perfect. they still require some

expertise to use well. a lot of what they're putting out is generic or banal. some of what they're putting out is just factually incorrect. and so, i think, for now, these chat bots are best used as the middle step in a creaive process, where you have a human being who's coming up with an idea, asking the bot to do some of the first draft of that idea, and having the human come back and check it at the end, to make sure it's correct and sensical and usable. now, i'm saying for now, because these bots are getting better all of the time, so we even have, you know, open ai is slated to come out with an even newer model, some time this year, called gpt4. so we may not know how to use these things in the future, but for right now, the human thought part is still very critical. >> eddie glaude, i mean, i am just horrified for the thought

of educators who are dealing with so much right now, when it comes to making sure that when students hand in a paper, it's a paper written by that student. how worried are you that this is already writing for papers for students at colleges across the country? >> i wasn't worried too much until i started this thing here, listening to this. yeah, you know, i think about my son. you know, when i look at my son's signature, mika, it looks like the signature he used when he was in the fourth grade. because now he's just using the computer. so there's a sense of which technology has sfeerd disappeared a link to penmanship. what does it mean, when it's being outsourced in that way, that's the first kind of worry. at the heart of education, isn't so much about grading papers, it's about, in some ways, kind of developing a certain kind of character, a certain kind of

openness and inquisitiveness to the world, and what happens when that's being outsourced to technology? that's the first kind of concern. the second concern is that technology exists in a world that's shaped by bias. that's shaped by the ugliness of this world. chatgpt is not going to get rid of that bias. so what happens when it's outsourced in this kind of technological medium, right? it doesn't resolve the ugliness and misogyny. it doesn't resolve the ugliness of racism and anti-semitism. how does it find its way into the code. human beings are doing that. some questions have to be asked, but other than that, what happens to inspiration and creativity when a damned computer is doing all of this work. >> but also, like part of really learning, at least for me, was the actual process of writing, a pen. and now, i guess, a computer and keyboard -- i know, i know, but i'm just saying, the process of

writing a paper for a student is -- that's how you're learning. you're developing on it, and you're erasing and going -- you're part of that process, which helps you learn. this is all being done for them. it's frightening. i want to just close out with a question for kevin and for berber jen. it's the same question, but different. kevin, where is this going next, technologically? and berber, you can follow up on the business side, how much do you think this is going to -- what microsoft is doing is going to repeat itself? kevin first? >> technologically, the line is moving in one direction. it's all going up. there's going to be more processing power, better models, more sophisticated outputs, more kinds of outputs, these tools are going to get better and better. and i think that's going to happen much more quickly than people anticipate. >> berber, is microsoft on the cutting edge?

>> i think time will tell. for now, they're definitely getting a lot of credit for making this investment. i think google, if you take it, it's a exert to microsoft and, you know, they've actually had technology similar to chatgpt, but they haven't released it to the public. they've been nervous about the sort of ethical implications of releasing something this powerful, the potential concerns around bias. so microsoft is definitely taking a step out there by sort of publicizing this relationship and saying very clearly that they want to integrate into it a whole host of business lines, so, you know, a lot of investors think open ai could be the next $1 trillion company. it could also potentially, you know, end up having very dangerous ramifications if we can't control it properly. so i think it remains to be seen whether this is going to be seen as a sort of really smart forward-looking bet by microsoft or something that they acted on too quickly. >> yeah, i think this is the

beginning of many conversations. kevin with "the new york times" and "wall street journal's" berber jen, daniella, great piece, thank you as well. still ahead, federal officials have launched an investigation at the dallas zoo into the suspicious death of an endangered animal after two other incidents involving potential sabotage to enclosures. we'll have the latest next on "morning joe." ures we'll have the latest next on "morning joe." ook. the peanut butter box is here. ralph, that's the chewy pharmacy box with our flea and tick meds. it's not peanut butter. i know, i know. but every time the box comes, we get the peanut butter. yes, because mom takes the meds out of the box and puts them in the peanut butter. sounds like we're getting peanut butter. yes, but that is the chewy pharmacy box. ♪ the peanut butter box is here. ♪ ♪ the peanut butter box is here ♪ alright, i'm out. pet prescriptions delivered to your door. chewy.

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thankfully, that's not going to be a situation where life imitates art, we don't think. with our next story a new study finds earth's inner core has stopped spinning. and maybe reversing its direction. scientists think this periodic spin switch is a normal part of its behavior that does not pose risks for life on our planet. research suggests earth's center does this on the on a periodic cycle that lasts about 60 to 70 years. this could help answer questions about climate and geologic. it remains the least understand because it is so reemote and difficult to study. now to this. a trio of incidents at the dallas zoo is raising red flags about potential criminal behavior. in less than two weeks, the zoo was forced to frantically search for a clouded leopard after the animal escaped, then employees discovered a cut in an enclosure

for mokeys and most recently the death over the weekend of an endangered bird which the zoo president described as very suspicious and likely not a natural death. nbc news correspondent sam brock has the latest. >> the striking death of the vulture naumed pin landed hard at the dallas zoo. not just because of the outcome, but also the circumstances. >> what we found was teemed to be suspicious, which pointed to this not being a natural taet. >> that daetd resulting from an unusual wound comes on the heels of a clouded leopard escaping on january 13th prompting a frabtic search for the animal. the zoo announced the discovery of an incision in the mesh fencing as well as the enclosure for some of the monkeys, though none escaped. then a tragedy seven days later.

police are not ruling anyone out. >> they are looking at both people who work at the zoo, staff, and anyone outside as well. so they are questioning everyone. >> on its sprawling 110-acre campus, it has 100 cameras and doubled security. officials haven't discussed how these enclout sures might have been breached. >> these are considered dangerous animals. we are coming into the first layer here. >> reporter: at zoo miami, which has no connection to dallas zoo or the incidents, communications director takes us to the enclosures housing black bears and a florida panther wearing masks because the animals are susceptible to covid. >> how many layers of protection are there in this complex? >> between five and six. >> reporter: just to open the gate required two people. one person to open the handle and the other to make sure the lock is in place. so how hard would it be to compromise the structure? >> the bottom line here is you have to make not two, not three, but five fatal mistakes to get

animal access to escape. with. >> reporter: the dallas zoo, the community is left with a sobering and sickening feeling about pin. >> this is an endangered spees sheers, which makes him all the more important to long-term sustainable of the vulture population. and we're also disturbed by the idea someone may have intentionally done this. >> that does it for us this morning. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage after a quick final break. k. the virus that causes shingles is sleeping... in 99% of people over 50. it's lying dormant, waiting... and could reactivate. shingles strikes as a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. and it could wake at any time. think you're not at risk for shingles? it's time to wake up. because shingles could wake up in you.

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good morning. 10:00 a.m. eastern. 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart. new this morning, in a consequential move that could reshape the battlefield, germany now say it is will send tanks to ukraine. the biden administration is set to do the same. president biden expected to make

remarks later today.