positions adopted by so many republicans in recent months. mike allen, thank you as always. >> thank you. it's a significant day today, eyes in washington later for the meeting between house speaker mccarthy and president biden. most importantly the world would be watching memphis, the funeral of tyre nichols. "morning joe" starts now. >> if he runs again in 2024 will you support him? >> yes. >> if he decides he's going to run would that preclude any sort of run that you would make yourself? >> i would not run if president trump ran. >> so that was former south carolina governor nikki haley almost two years ago. but it seems she changed her mind a bit about taking on the former president. she's now expected to challenge donald trump in the race for the republican nomination and she's not the only former governor eyeing a presidential bid.

meanwhile, the trump desantis rivalry is heating up. we'll show you how the florida governor responded to the covid criticism. we'll look at the rnc's 2024 playbook as party leaders want to double down on an issue that lost them the elections in the midterms. >> running straight into loserville. >> and today, president joe biden and speaker kevin mccarthy sit down at the white house in hopes of ending the standoff over the debt ceiling. plus reverend al sharpton joins us live from memphis ahead of his eulogy today for tyre nichols. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," it's wednesday, february 1st. along with joe, good to have you back. >> good to be back. >> willie and me. we have jonathan lemire, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay is with us.

and member of the new york times editorial board mara gay. so we start with today's high stakes meeting between president joe biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy. their focus, ending the standoff over the debt ceiling. ahead of the sit down, top biden advisers sent him a memo asking him to make a commitment the u.s. will not default on its debt and a pledge to lay out the republicans' fiscal goals. it also reaffirms the biden administration's messaging that the white house wants a clean debt ceiling raise with no concessions. in response, kevin mccarthy had this to say. >> you know the best way they can do that is say they're willing to negotiate. the only irresponsible way is to play a political game and say we're not going to talk about it. it sounds childish to me.

>> "the new york times" reports while republicans in recent weeks have insisted they want structural fiscal changes in exchange for voting to raise the borrowing cap but so far declined to offer a cohesive plan. >> here's the thing. the times goes on and says basically the republicans are fighting between themselves willie. they don't know how to cut the budget. they don't know how to get to a balanced budget in ten years. they're going to go generally. >> and say it's childish what the president is telling them. >> so, willie, what's fascinating here, is the republicans are doing to joe biden exactly what the most extreme members of the republican caucus did to kevin mccarthy. where kevin mccarthy said what do you need? i'll give you what you need for the votes, what do you need? and they wouldn't tell him. they just -- talk about being childish. they wanted to be on tv.

they wanted to be interviewed. they didn't have, five, six, seven of them, as marjorie taylor greene says, talking about being destructive, now they're doing the same thing to joe biden. where they say we're going to do destroy the economy, cost millions of people to lose their jobs, wreck people's retirement. cause interest rates to go up, we're going to default on the dollar, on the u.s. economy, but we're not going to tell you what you can do to avert it. they won't get specific and here's the reason why. because they have told us, they want to cut social security. they want to cut medicare. they want to slash defense spending. they want to defund the fbi. they want to make us less secure than ever before and one of the

most dangerous times in our lifetime so of course they don't want to talk about it. if i'm joe biden, i don't negotiate with people who aren't putting demands on the table. why should he negotiate against himself? he shouldn't. he's not going to. and let these clowns who run around talking about cutting social security, medicare, they're going to slash the defense fund, defund the fbi. let them try it, they'll lose again. >> it's almost disorienting. someone who served in congress, joe, in the republican party and someone who studied it for so long to say we have to slash defense spending but that is the official position of many republicans right now. and it goes back to the negotiations that kevin mccarthy had with those 20 or so members of the house. what do you need from me so i can get your vote to become speaker of the house? that's my dream, what do you need?

we're about to learn what those promises were. and jonathan lemire, the white house has said, plainly, the debt ceiling is not a bargaining chip. we won't negotiate it with you in the full faith and credit of the united states government. get that done we can talk about budgets another time. there are members talking about spending caps and things like that but not with any degree of specifity. in terms of something that can be negotiated today between the president and the speaker. >> they're saying two things we're not negotiating, and let's see your plan so we can negotiate. and republicans aren't providing it because they don't have it. the republicans i talked to, do seem to be moving away, mccarthy said moving away from the idea of cutting social security and medicare. even donald trump said that would be a bad idea. if you look around, where else are you going to cut from? republicans are nervous it can be defense. we can't be the party that slashes defense spending, particularly not now. it doesn't seem that mccarthy

has many cards to play headed into the meeting. expectations are modest for what happens this afternoon, 3:15 p.m. between mccarthy and president biden. it's a good sign they're talking at all, but this is an introductory meeting, expect political posturing and we're headed to the deadline before anything concrete happens. >> when republicans talk about slashing, they always go to medicare and medicaid and social security. and they can talk about reforming it, restructuring it, but that's all where they go. it's where newt wanted to go. it's where republicans go. so it's not -- if they're talking about this much money. it's not a question of are they going to cut social security and medicare or defense, they're going to do all of it, and

they're not talking about defunding law enforcement. they're not talking about defunding the fbi, they're going to do all of that. that's the only way they get there from here. so why does kevin mccarthy look more confused than ever? why does he look more lost than ever? because he knows the truth. he knows the truth. for them to do what he promised them to do, he's going to have to slash social security, medicare, he's going to have to slash medicaid. he's going to have to cut defense spending. and it's so disingenuous, katty. we can't say this enough. okay. when you pay the debt ceiling that has to be taken care of, it has to be raised, not for future spending. it has to be raised because of the trump tax cuts. because of all the money taken out because of the trump tax cuts. so what they're saying is, so we

blew a hole in the national debt sky high from our spending in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. and with the trump tax cuts. and because we drove up the debt to record levels and had the biggest deficits ever, and now we have to pay for that, we're going to make you agree to slash social security, medicare, medicaid and defense spending. if i'm biden, i just laugh at them. i laugh at them. and say, try somebody else. you've obviously confused me for somebody who owns a golf course in south florida i'm not that done. >> "the new york times" did an analysis on this, if you look at how the debt has grown since the beginning of the century. it grew under bush, grew again under obama and massively grew

under trump, $8 trillion and there was a lot of covid spending, but this was because of the tax cuts you mentioned. so this was trump's causing of where we are at the moment and no republican, especially not speaker mccarthy are going to want to jeopardize this. especially any member by saying we're cutting these things that seniors who might be the people who are voting for us really need at the moment and need when economic times are precarious and if we crash the economy, their standing will be more. it reminds me of the times the republicans were at the table saying they were going to get rid of obamacare and that became everyone's campaign slogan and that's what they committed to do and there was never a plan to replace it. we're in that position at the moment. >> never a plan. >> never a plan. >> this is governing by gesturing. >> it hasn't served them well.

>> it hasn't served them well. why don't we again, "the new york times" has talked about it, i talked about it a lot, i talked about it while trump was president. donald trump and kevin mccarthy, and all of these republicans who claim to be so conservative, drove the federal debt up more in four years under donald trump's presidency than the united states of america its first 225 years as a nation. four years. trump and these republicans, kevin mccarthy, claiming to be conservative, drove up the national debt more than the united states of america did, what, the first 42, 43 presidents. the first 225 years of this country. it's just unbelievable how reckless they are, and now they're claiming, like they're

acting self-righteous about this. >> and if you're joe biden you have to try to remember and remind the american people that they did that, they drove up that debt, as you mentioned. they got the deepest -- they got us the deepest in debt during those years by giving tax cuts to rich people, to extremely rich americans, to a small number of them. and those kind of go on for years, whereas other americans got a smaller break. so i think this is a time for the president to remind americans of that. but it's also worth pausing and just marveling at just how kind of completely oppositional these kind of priorities are that the republicans are focused on, that kevin mccarthy is focused on, to what the american people care about. there's something very strange. we talk a lot about the republican party becoming more anti-democratic. if you want to see what that really looks like, think about

the things that they are focused on. going more extreme on abortion. cutting medicare. cutting social security. even though they don't want to say it out loud yet. in the past, gun control back refusing to do anything on that, essentially. those are things that americans actually care about. so why is it that kevin mccarthy is so focused on something that americans don't actually want? well, that's because that party is becoming increasingly emboldened by and driven by this radical agenda of just a few. and apparently at the moment it seems the american people are hostage to whoever kevin mccarthy made a promise to in this process. so that's where we are. >> and, willie, they keep losing. we're going to talk about what -- >> there's more. >> what the rnc is promising to do. >> it's amazing. >> what the rnc is promising to do, it's unbelievable. that's like the new york jets --

>> do this in doses. >> or maybe the knicks saying we're going to do the next 20 years what we've done the last 20 years because we like losing. >> it's fun. >> more losing is what the republicans -- >> save that for later. >> we'll save it for later. but it's crazy. we have to say this just a caveat because there was a lot of people out there, if trump had to raise their debt because of covid. and they talk that way, too, it's weird, i don't know why they talk that way but they do. but they were driving up record deficits and record federal debt before covid. we were complaining on this show before covid about how donald trump was the most reckless and, by the way, let me say it too, kevin mccarthy and everybody in republican leadership went along for the ride. the most reckless president ever

fiscally. and well, now they're being self-righteous. fascinating. >> the tax cut mara was talking about was years before covid. a couple of years before covid that went into place. now everyone, it seems around january 20th, 2021 found their debt and deficit hawkishness again. we'll come back to the story in a bit. but today is a day of mourning in memphis where tyre nichols will be laid to rest. vice president kamala harris will attend his funeral. his mother and step father invited the vice president after speaking with her on the phone, and the vice president accepted the invitation. the mother of breonna taylor and brother of george floyd will join the funeral. and reverend al sharpton will deliver the eulogy. they met last night. >> because we will continue in

tyre's name to head up to martin's mountain top that's why we wanted to start this right on this sacred ground. >> sacred ground. >> this is holy ground. >> holy ground. >> and this family is ours in in the hands of history. >> and reverend sharpton joins us now from memphis talking about the mountaintop speech from the night before dr. king was killed. what did you say to the family? what comfort can you offer them around this horrible, horrible tragedy? >> well, the only comfort that i can offer them is that we will stand with them and fight in the name of tyre, and others, or to try and change the legal and legislative structure that deals with policing in this country. we are all united, including the family of tyre nichols, around

passing the george floyd justice in policing act. and i think that there is a new drive, i've been talking with my colleagues and civil rights leadership, as well as members of the senate to really try and push police reform in light of this. last night, as you said, we had the press conference and family and i stood at the spot where dr. king gave his last speech. the next day he was killed. i'm standing in the building, the lorraine motel, that is now the national civil rights museum, where he was actually killed. my youngest daughter is we me i showed him the balcony where dr. king stepped out of his room, headed to dinner, and a man blew his brains out. to go to memphis and think about dr. king died here on a cold

balcony in 1968 and we're here now where five black cops beat an unarmed man to death and there's no federal legislation that addresses this, shows the shame that we have of what has happened to tyre nichols. to think that dr. king died to put blacks on the police force and they're acting in as brutal a force as any racist police is why we're here today. and i'm going to address that directly in the eulogy, i think it's fitting the first black woman vice president will be there. because this building will show dr. king how far we've came from. as joe was in europe last week to show the human carnage how low we could be, now we have to rise together to fight this. we can't accept this. >> reverend, mara gay here, nice to see you, even under these circumstances. americans of all backgrounds and

especially black americans have watched this similar kind of tragedy unfold again and again, and you yourself have gone to be with families in this kind of pain again and again. do you have any kind of 30,000 foot thoughts on the -- kind of the success so far of this police reform strategy? do you feel like this is a moment to rethink that strategy or is progress being made? is this a situation where you just want to keep marching forward? is there any thought right now about, you know, how successful police reform strategies are as here we are again just another family -- it seems so piecemeal, i think, to so many americans that we have to watch people suffer again and again while seeing in action on the hill. >> well, it is very burdensome, certainly for those of us who have been doing the marching and been with the families, it does

get to feel piecemeal but when you think about in the state of new york, there's a state law against choke holds, the eric garner law, and other states we've seen, there will be state-wide legislation. the failure has been national and the strategy certainly has rethought every time we can, but the strategy is to put people in office that will vote for that. we came very close to passing the george floyd justice in policing act. and i think we must continue to put people in, and to pressure those that are in. some are now facing re-election in '24 that we may be able to get it now. let's not forget, mara, that even when we failed to get the george floyd justice in policing act after george floyd, that we did get the president of the united states, joe biden stepped forward and did an executive order around some of the same things that we wanted, in terms

of body cameras and other things that was in the george floyd bill. joe biden signed that executive order. the emancipation proclamation by abe lincoln was nothing but an executive order until it became the 15th amendment. so those in the struggle don't just wait for high profile situations like this. we keep going every day. it took dr. king, again in the building he was killed in, it took them nine years to get the civil rights act. this is not about a sprint movement. it's about a marathon. you run till you break the ribbon and we're going to do that. >> reverend, we've been talking to you through the years one tragedy after another tragedy. and we've seen with eric garner, in new york, and we've seen with

other tragedies one after another after another, you making progress, civil rights leaders making progress. i'm curious, this tragedy, again, shifts the focus as we've talked about from race just a little bit in this case to say, okay, we obviously have to focus on racism in policing where there is racism in policing, but this does turn the focus on the victim and the victim being black. and the fact that no police officer would have done this to me when i was 29 years old, a middle class white guy. they wouldn't have dared. because they knew if they did, if they beat the hell out of a 29-year-old white guy that hell would rain down from above. just would. that's the reality. so i'm curious, you know, we grow up and we learn about the social contract, what we all do, and being part of that social

contract. we give up some rights and we pay taxes, in return we're protected. i'm just curious. what do we do to make that social contract apply equally to 29-year-old black men like it does right now to 29-year-old white men when it comes to policing? >> i think you raise a critical point and you said to me, minutes after we heard about this, you said to me on the phone, they would have never done this to me. which showed even black police officers treat blacks differently than they treat whites, because you have five black policemen here who i don't believe would have done this to a white young man in memphis, tennessee. one, you have to fight them equally, you have to not just jump on it when it's white cops. we're here and it is five black cops. and second, there must be equal

protection under the law. that's why a major element of this george floyd justice in policing act is qualified immunity. police need to know they have skin in the game, they can be sued and they can be prosecuted. and the fact that this black police chief, a woman, fired them immediately before charges, the fact that they're now indicted and others are now being fired and probably indicted, will show you will pay a price. and because you are black you will not get a pass. we're here in memphis against black cops like we were in minneapolis against white cops. it's about police protecting and serving all of us. >> and just for everybody that's watching right now, nobody has really said anything about it. but, you know, rev, you and i spoke that morning. you had told me that you were going to put out a statement, but it was interesting, there

was a hesitancy for a bit from some civil rights leaders because they didn't know exactly how to respond to five black officers beating up and killing a black man and you told me immediately that morning, doesn't matter. we have to charge forward and seek justice in this case just as aggressively as we do in any case. just as aggressively as we did in minneapolis. >> absolutely. i didn't hesitate because, as you know, i grew up as a teenager in new york, in dr. king's movement. and dr. king did not die in this building for blacks to have the right to beat each other to death even if you're in a blue uniform. so there is no morale gap between which you stand for. i was talking to martin luther king iii about this. we have to be consistent morally if we're going to get this country back on track.

that's why i think today's rally, funeral, because the mother and father have been adamant that this is going to be about justice and changing laws. and i think that is why it's so important the vice president is here because we need to make it clear, this is about race, yes, but it's about reforming. and those even of our color need to know they're not of our kind. >> thank you for that. >> reverend al sharpton, thank you very much. we'll see you again soon, later on in the show. thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," amid 2024 speculation, florida governor ron desantis responds to donald trump after the former president criticized his handling of the covid pandemic. we'll play for you what he said. plus we'll take a look at why adult film star stormy daniels is thanking donald trump for his latest attack that he posted on truth social. also ahead, republican

congressman george santos sits down for an in depth television interview. what he had to say about the many lies he told on the campaign trail. and actor alec baldwin formally charged in the fatal shooting on the set of "rust" what prosecutors are saying about the evidence against him. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ cargurus. shop.buy.sell.online. i'm a screen addicted tween. and, if i'm not posting on social media, i don't feel seen. hey mom. look! mom! oh my god mom. you gotta look at this. nope.

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♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪ giorgio, look. 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. half past the hour. yesterday we reported on the manhattan grand jury that will hear evidence about the alleged hush money payments that president trump paid to adult film star stormy daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. the former president addressed

it on social media. essentially confirming that it happened writing with respect to the stormy nonsense it's very old and happened a long time ago. long past the very publically known and accepted deadline of the statute of limitations. so yucky. daniels responded on twitter posting, thanks for just admitting that i was telling the truth about everything. it all comes down -- >> jonathan lemire, the way that he set this up, i've always said, you know, the personal stuff is the personal stuff. but the federal elections commission would look at any candidate -- if a members of congress had told a staff member, in this case it was michael cohen, hey, listen, i need you to get some hush money to somebody that i was in a relationship with -- >> take it from the campaign. >> -- two weeks before the election, i mean, that person

would have been busted two weeks after the fec found out about it. it's crazy that this isn't become an issue before, because it would have with any member of the house of representatives or any member of the senate. >> yeah, first of all, former president on a run here on truth social relitigaing some of the worst moments of his time in office. we've gotten helsinki and this. >> what did he call you a terrible reporter? >> second rate. >> let me correct you, he called me a third rate reporter. >> but he's admitting. like he admitted in the stormy daniels truth social tweet that he broke the law. he admitted again after lying about it, after you busted him, he's now admitting all these years later that yes, he trusts

an ex-kgb agent that sees the united states of america as an enemy more than the professionals that run the intel community. >> sided with putin and still siding putin even after he launched a war. back to the stormy daniels matter, this is not only a confession on truth social, but this is where he could run into legal trouble here. we've been talking to analysts who say there was questions all along why the manhattan da was slow to bring up the charge, a couple prosecutors quit the office because it seemed like they weren't going to and now the da has revisited it. we can tick through the list, mika did yesterday in terms of the number of legal cases facing donald trump but this is one that's immediate and a charge appears to seem likely because for a matter of this import you wouldn't go to the grand jury if you didn't think you could get a

charge. conviction is a different matter we'll see. but if indeed he had a staffer pay this money to protect his reputation. we're told, if convicted, that could be four years in prison. >> and he just added to the case. >> the question is -- again, the question is, why has it taken this long? and this is a whole thing about they're -- >> i guess he was president -- >> wait until he's ex-president. >> he didn't be charged. >> but two years since he was president and the manhattan da dragging their feet, prosecutors quitting because they're afraid of donald trump. >> tough. we'll follow this. actor and producer alec baldwin has been charged in the deadly 2021 shooting on the set of the movie "rust" the allegations from prosecutors include baldwin not taking his weapons training seriously. nbc news national correspondent miguel almaguer has details.

>> i have unfortunate news to tell you. >> what? >> she didn't make it. >> reporter: saying he acted with willful disregard and negligence, the santa fe district attorney has charged alec baldwin with involuntary manslaughter. arguing he caused the death of helena hutchens. saying he was not present for firearms training and then was distracted and talking to his family on his cell phone during the training. the explosive allegation saying evidence showed baldwin with his finger on the trigger multiple times. >> he's experienced. he understands what the proper protocol is for safety and he was just disregarding that. >> reporter: while baldwin's attorney called the charge a miscarriage of justice, the da

said he handled the weapon in a neglect manner and aimed the weapon at the crew. after finding live rounds on the armorer's cart and holster. the da believes it was hanna gutierrez reed who loaded the weapon and assistant director dave halls who handed it to baldwin. the attorneys representing gutierrez reed say we will fight these charges. >> do you think they're both equally culpable here? >> i do. >> if convicted they could face six and a half years behind bars for the tragedy on the low budget movie set. next hour we'll speak with legal analyst danny cevallos about the case.

willie? >> in new york, the owner of the knicks has reportedly hired hope hicks as a public relations consultant. dolan hired hicks after his use of facial recognition technology at madison square garden to keep his adversaries out of the arena. they should have kept lebron out of the building last night. but attorneys for law firms against msg. he has used the technology to identify and confront his personal critics. so jonathan lemire, as we knicks fans mark this year, 50 years 5-0, since our last nba title this is what we're dealing with at the garden. tough loss to the lakers in overtime. >> because hope hicks had so much success keeping other

temper mental new yorkers out of the spotlight. james dolan is -- you're the knicks fan at the table, willie -- disliked by the majority of knicks fans and not only run into trouble with his facial recognition technology to keep lawyers out of the building but suggested banning beer at madison square garden. knicks fans need to have more than one to get through another playoff-less season. but it's interesting to see hope hicks pop back into this point. at this point she stayed away from donald trump's 2024 bid. >> part of the scrap is with the state liquor board all right we won't have beer at the game. >> lebron beat the knicks at the garden, we couldn't lure lebron to the world's greatest arena. >> i really don't, the knicks could be the greatest show on

earth. they could. here you are in the center of manhattan. it's one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world -- >> yep. >> -- and they just keep losing. and they always lose ugly. look at that beautiful beacon. shining bright, from midtown manhattan. >> it's horrible. >> aren't you glad they tore down penn station to build that, joe? >> somebody had asked me before, when this news came out, said, who's worse, dan snyder or dolan? come on. it's not even close. snyder is like the worst of the worst, but -- but you just -- with the knicks, that's just taking it to a completely different level through the years. willie, it's horrible. and like you said, it's been 50 years. and you've got like the most

valuable sports franchise that year after year after year just collapse. and it's always ugly. and now facial recognition to keep people out that criticize him? >> yeah. i was 10 years old when the knicks won the draft lottery and we were going to get patrick ewe wing and the path was cleared to multiple titles. it's been a long time. they still fill the arena, they're the top five most valuable franchises in the world. they make tons and tons of money through media deals for everything that goes on at madison square garden. so james dolan is good, he's fine, though they have exciting players this year, but this has been going on like this for so long and so many people are making so much money he's not bothered by losing. >> we're supposed to go right now. >> we are. it's time to go to break. >> my pet peeve, you will remember from the early years of

"morning joe," me complaining about my luggage getting lost every weekend at jfk. what i don't understand is, new york greatest city on earth, whatever -- >> it is. >> it is. >> people can have that debate. i personally think it is. i'm not a new yorker but i think it is. it's the center of the world culturally, it's the center of the world economically. and yet its infrastructure is as bad as i've ever seen. we're showing madison square garden right there. look at what they did to penn station. they took a beautiful piece of architecture and just completely destroyed it. you enjoy have six and a half foot ceilings as you go into the train station. it's just absolutely miserable. you fly into jfk -- i fly into airports all over the world, the

country, you fly into jfk, it takes you 45 minutes just to get out to an interstate. any other city in the world would have an express train that goes from jfk to midtown manhattan. any other city in the world would have an express train that stops in queens -- >> okay. >> and, by the way, as you get to queens, right, suddenly everything is above ground and it's as wicked as the six flags like log jam ride. no. no. this is an important question -- >> but joe -- >> no, mika, this is an important question. i want to know, willie, and lemire and mara and everybody that has to deal with new york city every day, how could it be that the greatest city in the world, and i'm dead serious, has the worst infrastructure in america? >> mara, let's take this on.

first of all, new york subway is the only way to travel around new york. you have to take it. yes, it's rickety. some of the newer stations are beautiful. we're capable of building new subway stations. improvements at jfk, laguardia to be sure. the new old penn station is beautiful. so there is progress being made. but it's an old city that was built a long time ago. and you're sort of improving as you go. >> how much time do we have, right, willie? in all seriousness, actually we have the subway system, thank god, is the modern marvel of the world. the fact it was built right the first time and continues to work and shuttle millions of new yorkers around and americans is a good sign because we haven't really invested in it properly since. but we have a lot of work to do. it's very expensive to undertake construction projects in new york and also we get very little federal money here in new york

for what new yorkers send in tax dollars to washington. >> and it's a fight between albany and new york city who's going to pay for the subway. but you were there a couple days ago with president biden. and a new tunnel is on the way. >> governor cuomo took this on. and now the federal government is going to be a partner with new york city. a new project to repair and build new tunnels under the hudson river that will help train traffic not just commuter rail in new york but as goods travel up and down the eastern sea board, billions of dollars. every time you're stuck on the expressway or the cross bronx you realize new york has a long way to go but there seems to be improvements. >> we're getting deep in new

york traffic here. you can land at jfk at midnight and sit in bumper to bumper traffic. but van wick, here we are. >> it doesn't matter when you land, you're on there for 30, 40 minutes. 30, 40 minutes before you then can merge into start moving towards manhattan and then be stuck there for another hour. >> okay. >> it doesn't matter the time. here's the deal. here's the deal and i'm glad president biden was here yesterday -- >> in new york. >> yeah. in new york, not here but in new york. i'm glad that they're talking about this. but here's the reality. new york city is the gateway to the world. whether you like new york or not, it's the gateway to the world. you look at the tax revenue that new york city sends to -- not only albany but also washington d.c., they've got to make it easier for people coming in to new york. they have to make it easier for

people moving around new york. and, yeah, again we've talked about it, it's cool that they're trying to spend some money at laguardia, even if it spirals around three states -- >> stop. you have to stop. if you bring up jfk. i'm sorry, nothing is worse than ron desantis' miami international airport. >> it is horrible. >> it is horrible. thanks ron desantis. >> thanks ron. >> mika literally walks around she has the stickers thanks ron, every escalator is busted. >> i'm not sure the governor has jurisdiction over the escalators but i take your point. >> he can do something. >> people barf, dogs poop it's always. >> i once saw it rain in the airport. >> mara saw it rain in the airport in miami? >> what? >> i don't think that was rain. >> i will say, there's a dog

from the balcony above. but i will say miami is not the gateway to america -- >> we have to move on. >> they have to fix it. >> coming up -- >> i do like seeing -- >> it's really nice that you're back. >> beautiful. >> it's a long day. >> it is a long walk -- >> all of the amish. >> is that harrison ford out there fixing a birdhouse? >> it's wonderful. coming up on "morning joe." the president of the council on foreign relations richard haas joins us to discuss the top stories from overseas. including the new u.s. aid for ukraine's war effort and the impact of secretary of state blinken's visit to israel amid escalation of violence in the region. "morning joe" will be right back.

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♪♪ 53 past the hour. live look at the white house. beautiful shot of washington, d.c. so arriving in tel aviv on monday, secretary of state antony blinken called for urgent steps to restore calm between israelis and palestinians. blinken's visit to israel and the west bank included meetings with the newly-elected israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and palestinian leader mahmoud abbas coming on the heels of a strings between the

two sides. >> author of the new book titled "the bill of obligations the ten habits of good citizens." it's a great read. it's an important read. >> it really is. >> if you get a chance, get it and read it. richard, netanyahu already said i'm invested in the abraham accords. i've done more than every other prime minister in history. i don't really have any need to sit down and deal with the palestinians. how is this going to work? how are tensions not going to continue to escalate if he has the most people would say far right government ever in israel and he's just saying right off the bat, he's not invested in peace with the palestinians? >> this is going to work badly and then get even worse, joe. look, the abraham accords ignored the palestinians. so this is consistent with that. there's zero chance there's going to be progress between israel and the palestinians diplomatically because israeli's

government is not interested. palestinians are not particularly interested in any diplomatic progress. the two-state solution for the time being, if not permanently is dead. neither government -- neither the palestinian authority nor the israelis are in control of people who are increasingly involved in the violence. is settlers on the israeli side, young palestinian groups in the west bank not to mention hamas and gaza. so i think you're going to have more and more violence. ultimately the real question is does this prevent, for example, saudi arabia from ever normalizing relations with israel, particularly if islamic sites become a venue of violence. i worry that could happen and unravel some of the progress we have seen. so again, we have to watch this space, but there's no glimmer of good news coming from here. >> yeah. caddy cay, listen, i'm going to give you several options, heathrow, gatwick airport or ask

question about middle east peace, your call? >> knicks. >> i was getting very exercised during that conversation, of course, looking at infrastructure spending around the world. i looked it up. we are behind 17th in the world behind turkey, saudi rab ya, russia, india have greater infrastructure spending than the united states. jfk is a mess. it needs to be fixed. dulles one of the most beautiful airports in the world. true. it's a gorgeous, gorgeous building. getting there is impossible unless you have a car but otherwise. richard, i was in morocco in early january, i was surprised at the degree of opposition to the abraham accords, just from moroccans i was speaking to. i wonder if that might play into the saudi calculations, too. but is there any other political capital that the u.s. might be holding back with israel because they are trying to bring israel on board further on ukraine? is there -- imagine ukraine was a big part of tony blinken's

conversations with netanyahu. is there any indication that israel may join more firmly the western camp? i know there's technology they would like them to send to the ukrainians, but are they having to turn -- dialed back on some of the palestinian and the two-state solution stuff in order to get more input on ukraine? >> well, what we entered is the year of a compartmentalized u.s./israeli relationship. we totally disagree on the palestinian issue, on ukraine the two countries disagree and i don't see israel alienating russia. it's very worried about syria, russia can be a help there and also a large jewish community in russia. i don't see the israelis doing much. the united states and israel have to find a way to work together is iran. the protests have died down in iran. what hasn't died down apparently iranian efforts in their nuclear program. and we saw the attacks the israelis apparently carried out the other day. that's not the end of it. diplomacy is not working there. so that's going to be an area --

the question for the united states and israel is can they preserve cooperation on iran at the same time they clearly disagree on some of the other important issues between them. >> richard, it's jonathan. secretary of state blinken, busy guy, after this trip he's soon heading to china. this was the visit that was brokered during the meeting between president biden and president xi jinping in bali in november at the g20. assess for us, if you will, the current state of relationship between washington and beijing. >> look, this is the most important bilateral relationship this era. by every and any measure, jonathan, it's deteriorated over the last five to ten years. i would say the lion's share of the responsibility is on the chinese side given what xi jinping is doing at home in the region. but the chinese recently have clearly signaled they want to stabilize the relationship, put something of a floor under it. they're on something of what

passes for a charm offensive. look, it's good they're talking. to me the real question is can there be not any agreements but at least some understandings about some of the guardrails to avoid a real crisis, much less a conflict over taiwan. maybe they can work out some things on the economic side. continue to press the chinese not to do more than they're doing for the russians in ukraine. so it's really a damage-limiting, can we put a floor under this relationship rather than accomplishing good things. but look, sometimes what you avoid in diplomacy is just as important as what you achieve. i think it's potentially a fairly important visit. >> so richard, i went to a couple of -- i went to a couple of european capitals over the weekend. i spoke with some diplomats and leaders. their view on ukraine is fascinating. i'm not in a position where i can say exactly what they're

thinking as we move forward, but let me ask you, how do you think this spring and summer looks -- the ukraine/russian conflict? do you think we move any closer to a deal with peace? >> i'm sorry to be so negative on so many things this morning. i wish i could say yes. i simply don't see the ingredients there. i think, if anything, fighting will grow more intense. we're seeing the russians prepare, in not for new offensive, at least for slightly greater fighting. i think the russians figure if they do more against ukraine militarily, it puts ukraine on the defense more rather than being able to go on the offense. and i don't think either side is at all prepared politically for compromise, for cutting a deal. putin still worries that anything that involves compromise makes him weak at home. given the military success they have enjoyed, given the atrocities they suffered,

there's simply no appetite on the ukrainian side for compromise. i think the spring, this summer, next fall a year from now i think the situation largely resembles where we are now. i think we need to essentially prepare ourselves not just for months but potentially for years more of conflict. >> well, then we have right now, of course, tanks being introduced. i'm wondering if over the next six months we start to see maybe some of those megs introduced and maybe some more air support be introduced. what are you hearing? >> i think ultimately aircraft could make more of a difference than the tanks, given just the nature of modern warfare. but at the moment, you know, i think there's a decent chance the europeans might introduce some. the administration still seems worried about doing -- how to put it, trying to find the sweet spot between doing enough for ukraine but not, quote unquote, too much that might risk certain types of russian escalation or expansion of the war effort.

so, i don't think it's a u.s. aircraft going there. possibly european. not enough to be decisive militarily. i think this is going to be a long, expensive slog. >> richard haass, thank you very much. it is just about two minutes past the top of the hour. we'll start with the republican national committee urging gop lawmakers to double down on anti-abortion stances and, quote, go on the offense in the 2024 election cycle. yeah. on friday the group passed resolution calling on republicans to push for laws that ban abortions once a heart beat is detected. that would outlaw the procedure at about six weeks of pregnancy before many even realize they're pregnant. the resolution also expressed disappointment in candidates who did not publicize their abortion views during the november election. and fight back against what it called democratic extremism on abortion. we'll note that polling has showed the opposite, that many voters were turned off by the

extreme position of republican candidates on the issue. >> so willie, it's just absolutely fascinating, willie, we have again candidate after candidate after candidate in swing districts, in swing states, losing because of abortion and here you have -- >> their strategy to lose more? >> it's got to be the contributors that are saying, this is what gave democrats a historic midterm given all the trends. and now we want you to double down on this losing strategy. >> yeah. i mean, race by race this was decisive. the abortion issue was decisive with some of the more extreme republican candidates leaning hard into no exceptions for rape or incest, saying that the 14-year-old having a baby is a perfect example of where abortion -- all these lines that came out that cost people

elections. there's another piece of this equally stunning, a new report from the rnc that proposes creating permanent infrastructure in every state to ramp up election integrity activities in response to perceptions within their own party among their voters of widespread election fraud. there was none. the internal report obtained by "the washington post" reveals the degree to which republicans continue to trade on former president donald trump's false claims that democrats and their allies rigged his defeated 2020. nbc news has not viewed or verified a copy of the report, but the "post" continues, quote, the report suggests building massive new party organization involved state-level election integrity officers and intensive new training models for poll workers and observers all based on unsubstantiated claims that democrats have implemented election procedures that will allow for rigged votes. the report, quote, acknowledges the gop's obsession with election fraud, has cost the party but concludes the party must continue to build efforts

to restore republican faith in their elections. it goes on, instead of combatting misinformation about fraud, the report encourages the recruitment of staff and volunteers to monitor elections and the development of more aggressive legal strategies to hold election officials accountable for violating the law. >> willie. >> what are we doing? >> this election, by trump's own person, said the 2020 election was the cleanest election ever held. >> yeah. and all the judges who weighed in, many of them republican, trump-appointed judges, who said there was no election fraud here. they won one case, trump attorneys, among 60 some. in a statement to the paper, the rnc called the report an early draft document that reflects contributions from only a small number of rnc staff. however, top republicans remain concerned. senator john thune, number two republican in the senate told politico in part, any candidate in '24 has a stolen election campaign theme will have the same issues that some of the '22

candidates had. just don't think that's where the american public is. jonathan lemire, i read this story in the "washington post" and thought there has to be a dnc sleeper agent inside the rnc saying, yes, continue with that strategy. continue with that strategy, please. >> oh my god. >> yeah. this is further legacy of donald trump's big lie. and the party is still in its throes. we saw the vast majority of the prominent election deniers in last november lose. now, there are some who still have their spot in the house of representatives. there are certainly members of republican lawmakers who voted against certifying joe biden's victory who maintain their seat in congress, but this is a losing issue. poll after poll after poll shows that and yet they're still doubling, triple, quadruping down on it. as much as we have been talking for months now how donald trump appears weaker than before, other republicans will take him on in 2024. but he is still the dominant figure in the party and his beliefs are now so engrained

that there have cast widespread doubt among republican lawmakers and voters as to whether elections can be trusted, even though all evidence, all evidence points that they can. setting up for further defeat. >> let's bring in white house editor for politico, sam stein. and staff writer at the atlantic, david fromm. also with us, msnbc contributor, mike barnicle. >> mike, it's amazing because republicans lost in 2017, '18, '19, '20, i was corrected they also lost in 2021 and 2022 and if you are an election denier you lost big time. and i remember looking -- >> they like it. >> two exit polls that stuck out that actually -- that actually line right up with what we're talking about this morning. we were all shocked because last polls of the 2022 campaign suggested on the issues abortion came in at 5, 6, 7%. election night, the exit polls

show more like 30, 35, 40% for voters. you knew that was a problem for republican. but then there was another question that i saw an exit poll -- in an exit poll. the question was, do you have confidence that your vote is going to be counted fairly today? 85% of voters said, yes. and at that point i was like, barr the door. this is going to be a long night for the republicans. election deniers. sure enough, mike, every single one lost. and yet here we are with the rnc pushing the most extreme positions on abortion and the most extreme positions on election night. >> oh, joe, you sound so, so woke. you know, i mean, when you talk to -- >> that's my problem actually. >> when you talk to ordinary people who have just been laid off, massive layoffs continue, corporate america tries to make money in a tough economy, you

will find out that a huge issue among people who have been laid off, people waiting for their social security checks is the danger of voting by mail. they all talk about it. you know, how dangerous that is. >> i heard it. >> that's tough. >> they finish talking about that, they talk about critical race theory or talk about wokism in colleges being taught, things like that. these are the real issues that republicans have a lock on. >> and mike, then what they say is they say, you know what we really need to do is pass legislation that would make a 10-year-old girl who was raped in ohio have to flee her state so she and her parents and her priest and loved ones can make a decision on what best to do after her rape. i mean, i've never -- i can't believe i'm saying this, i've never seen a party as disconnected from middle america as this republican party. >> yeah. or they look at the next two years and having won the house

of representatives say we need to spend our time conducting the investigations into every possible aspect of the biden administration and the biden family when that didn't in my memory rank anywhere on the list of voter's concerns going into the polls in the midterm elections or in the exit polls after the midterm elections. it's not a winning strategy in terms of growing your share of the electorate, but it is a very successful way, particularly those on the right of the republican field, keeping the trump wing of the republican party happy and soldly loyal. that seems to be the play at the moment. >> to raise money i guess for some of these candidates. not to win elections. >> david from your piece out this morning is entitled "party of trolls" republicans need to stop being so obnoxious and you write about the reasons republicans faired so poorly in the 2022 midterms beyond the

economy, abortion and attacks on the economy. could there be more? they clearly played a role but don't underweight the impact of the performative obnoxiousness that now pervades republican messaging. conservatives built career paths for young people that start on extremist message boards and lead to jobs on republican campaigns. then jobs in state and federal offices, then jobs in the conservative media. this pattern of behavior bids fair to repeat itself in 2024. as i write these words at the beginning of 2023, the conservative world is most excited not by the prospect of big, legislative action from a republican house majority and not by trump's declared candidacy for president in 2024 or by desantis' yet undeclared one, but by the chance to repeat itself 2020 attacks on the personal misconduct of president biden's son, hunter. whatever the origin of the

hunter biden materials, the authenticity of at least some of which has been confirmed by reputable media outlets, there's no dispute about their impact on the 2020 election. they flopped and he brings up such a good point. this is what you talk about the performative part of this. they've become obnoxious and cartoon characters of themselves, not in synch with where the american people stand, not just democrats, but republican women and men who did not like seeing roe overturned. >> well, you can look at those issues, but you bring up such a great point. the gesturing, the performative art of being obnoxious all the time. i remember when i was campaigning, i talk about, hey, these are the things i'm going to do when i go to washington. here are the issues, balanced budget, congress live by the same rules that everybody else live by, pass regulatory reform, we're going to push tax reform, we're going to push welfare reform and i would talk for 20 minutes and somebody said, joe,

i'm doing this for you -- >> i would say, don't do it for me. this isn't -- i have nothing to do with this. i'm going up. this is what we're going to fight for. vote for the issues. that's what matters. and people did. we are now -- i never hear my former party, i never hear them talking about issues. kevin mccarthy won't even tell joe biden what he wants. he says it's childish that the president of the united states is saying, okay, let me know the outlines of youred by budget plan so we can negotiate. he refuses to because it's a gesture -- because as we know, david, as we said -- >> childish. >> said last hour, kevin mccarthy and donald trump raised the federal deficit and the national debt higher in four years than presidents did for the first 225 years of the republic. >> here is the test that we're running on american politics. this may be the most important question that the country faces

right now. the deepest level. we're doing an experiment. where democrats are betting that americans care most about things and republicans are betting that americans care most about feelings. president biden will campaign over the next year by going to factory openings and road openings and say look at all this stuff i brought to red states. red states are getting disproportionate amounts of the benefits of the president's spending. we got a new road for you. we have new high school. we have a new high-speed internet connection. the republican gamble, i don't know this is quite as conscious as i'm about to say has been there is enormous amount of cultural upset. it doesn't have to attach to anything in specific. you can be mad about critical race theory with no idea what critical race theory is. it doesn't matter. it's a free-floating emotion and attaches to things. and we're going to try to channel those emotions by giving words to feelings but not connecting those feelings to any material thing. and that's going to be the experiment. do the things matter or do the

feelings matter? >> yeah. and you know, willie, i talked to a reck strategist, top republican strategist before the election, bragging about the number of mail pieces that candidates were sitting out about trans-athletes. just one after another after another. i just listened. okay. and then i thought, but there's only zero point zero zero 3% of americans who identify as trans. and you're -- okay. that's fine. so out of 322 million americans, okay. so you're focussing on 0.0003% of americans? that's like most of the mail pieces you're sending out. what are you doing for the other 321 million americans? they're just clueless to it.

only the libs. they never think about helping middle class americans. >> yeah. donald trump actually just yesterday to your point, joe, put out a new document where he says if he's re-elected he will curb trans-gender rights. playing that game as well. and sam stein, this -- what david is talking about here leads politicians to a place of what's the thing i'm supposed to say? what's the right thing? what signal should i give off to do things like mocking paul pelosi being attacked with a hammer during an assassination attempt of the speaker of the house, some of them backed away from it, but the reflex now is what is the thing i can say to please that small group of people, to please the base? >> yeah. republican politics has grown increasingly online in the past couple years. i mean, go through the list. but about a year and a half ago we were talking about dr. seuss as a problem. we talked about m&ms, the gender of the m & ms being a problem for a while. it was gas stoves and potential being outlawed being a problem.

it's usually what's on the internet and what's driving people mad on the internet. can you latch on to that and make a political issue out of it? of course a lot is performative and driven by fundraising. easy to dash off a fundraising email that references this stuff. it's all circular. they're in a cocoon and having trouble breaking out. to your earlier point, the rnc, they're not necessarily focussed on those things, but the decision to go so hard on abortion and election denialism, you know, that is -- it's a thread of this. they're listening to the base, the demands of the base. and rather than standing up and saying, look, this may have cost us in 2022, we shouldn't do this again. they're acquiescing. ironically donald trump will never get over election denialism, but it was trump himself who signaled that he was -- he thought it was politically disadvantageous to take those abortion positions right after the election.

he said we should -- he signaled he thought they should have been way more forgiving about rape, incest than the party allowed. you can't break away from that when donald trump is giving you cover, it's difficult to see how you have an off ramp. >> yeah. and mike barnicle, think about where this republican party has been since joe biden got elected. we're talking about election denialism, about the lies about paul -- the lies about paul pelosi, all the lies. a lot of people in mainstream media that bought into the lies quietly that were calling around that weekend, telling me, i think there's something here. they bought into the lies. i mean, it's grotesque. but just think about the smallness, though, of this republican party. sam laid it out perfectly. from dr. seuss to gas stoves. i like both of them. what do they have to do with where 323 million americans are going over the next two years?

nowhere. >> well, you know, they've learned their lesson from their mentor, donald trump. i mean, fear works among some voters. >> but it's not scaring americans. >> lies work. >> mike, again, they lost in 2017. they lost in 2018. they lost in 2019. they lost in 2020. they lost in 2021. they lost in 2022. and they're not adjusting to those losses because they're allowing the talking points of extreme podcasters to run a national political party? >> i was going to go on to say and nowhere has fear enveloped itself, wrapped itself around more people than among republicans who are elected to office. i mean, the republicans in the house of representatives, some of the republicans in the united states senate, republicans in legislatures and republican legislatures throughout the country, they're afraid of their own voters. so they use things like gas stoves versus electric stoves, use things like critical race

theory when no one knows what critical race theory is, if it was being taught, they wouldn't know if it was being taught. david frum, to your point you raised earlier, we do have apparently one republican who does know how to govern and that is potentially in his own mind the next president of the united states, ron desantis. and what's going on in florida now is maybe a peek into a horrifying future. he's now tampering with college education in various colleges, specifically starting with one in florida. that's ron desantis. that's the republican future. more fear. >> well, that goes -- that is an example, but i mean in the article by this performative obnoxiousness, this performative trolling, think in your memories, call up a mental image of ronald reagan. smiling, chuckling. call up a mental image of bill clinton. among his many personal flaws, the personal charm. and george w. bush, same thing. an effort to win people through

personality. and that was from the great days of network tv where millions of people watch the same channel. now, just ask yourself, have you ever seen governor desantis in anything like a good mood, any of the images you have seen of him. does he ever look warm or someone happy to see you? does he kiss the baby or punch the baby in the face? and he's a very intelligent person. he's obviously thought about this. he may have a dispeptic personalities pretend to be happy to see the baby. i think he made a calculations. my voters want performative rage. they don't want a speech about immigration policy, cram 40 frightened people on a jet and send them somewhere. they don't want me to talk about the future of race relations in america and maybe there are things that republicans don't like and things have gone too far. no, they want to see me do stunts on college campuses because i'm going to perform the feeling they have. i'm not going to give them a

thing. they don't care about thing. i will be their voice of anger, sense of loss, of sense of grievance. >> that's it. >> it is a great strategy nationwide for 37, 38% of americans. >> yeah. >> and that's the thing. it's great 37 -- ron desantis did really well. he did really well because, well, nobody ran -- well, charlie kris ran against him but the democrats completely fled the state. and so, we'll see if ron desantis gets outside of his bubble in tallahassee. >> and see how it works. >> we'll see how it works. but again, though, i talk about the laws of gravity returning to politics, returning to law, returning to criminal indictments. it's the same thing with campaigning. you know, being a jerk was never

a big winner in campaigning for office. and this is such a great point. but they ran -- >> it's become a cycle. >> being a jerk is going to help get you elected. listen, you can build a cottage industry with a podcast being a jerk. >> and right wing media. >> and a lot of people are doing that. and so, they make their millions. but you can't win nationally -- donald trump did it in 2016. and it was lightning in a bottle and it happened one time. but this party, my former party, i keep trying to explain this is not the pathway forward. >> yeah. >> you will keep losing. they just don't listen. >> this is their example this man you're looking at right here. speaking of ron desantis and miami airport and all those other things, yesterday he responded to former president trump's criticism of him and

florida's approach to covid. over the weekend, trump alleged desantis would prove unloyal if he chooses to run for president, adding desantis changed his tune a lot regarding the covid vaccine and criticized how long florida was closed down. during a press conference in bradenton, desantis was asked about trump's comments. take a look. >> well, look, what i would just say is this, i roll out of bed. i have people attacking me from all angles. it's been happening for many, many years. and if you look at the good thing about it, though, is like if you take a crisis situation like covid, you know, the good thing about it is when you're an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions. you got to steer that ship. and the good thing is that the people are able to render a judgment on that whether they re-elect you or not. i'm happy to say, you know, in my case, not only did we win re-election, we won with the highest percentage of the vote

that any republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of florida. >> yeah. you know, he did. and he did. and he was a massive proponent of vaccines. went around the state bragging about florida getting vaccines into arms, shots in the arms -- >> they turned on that. >> of senior citizens was huge into vaccines. sam stein, a lot of people are reading that as desantis sort of pushing back against trump, saying, yeah, well at least i won re-election. yet still, though, i have to say the further we get into this, the more i'm wondering whether ron desantis is really going to have the courage to take on trump one on one. what are you hearing? >> well, you know, it's a good point. we're reporting that trump's super pac is ready to go and go on an onslaught against desantis. they're compiling these opposition files, doing a lot of research, testing focus groups in some of the early nominating states. and look, you know, donald

trump, whatever you think of the man, clearly relishes just viciously opening up someone's soul and attacking it. right? that's his forte. and so, when you do enter into the field, you have to expect something like that. at the same time, all indications are that desantis is going to get in at some point. it's just a matter of when and how he wants to respond to trump. let me just say on the issue of these early attacks. i think sort of the story here is the alarming one which is we have gotten to a place now where it is a liability or perceived liability within the republican circles to have been pro vaccination in the earliest days of covid. do you remember when we were having those discussions about shutting down the beaches and shutting down society? the early projections are we may have 240,000 deaths by the end of the year of covid. we blasted through that. >> yeah. >> we are well over a million. and now it's considered a liability to have taken those

public health precautions and to have embraced a vaccine that president trump himself touted as a historic and miraculous breakthrough in terms of bio medical research. and we have just strayed so far from those early days that the politics seem warped to be honest. >> for sure. sam stein, thank you very, very much. david frum, thank you as well. his new piece is online this morning for the atlantic. thank you. let's now go back to memphis. we want to bring back in reverend al sharpton into the conversation. he's there today to deliver the eulogy at the funeral of tyre nichols. reverend al, there's so many issues and questions that have come out of the death of tyre nichols, but today is really for his family to be supported and to put a marker down on making sure his death was not in vain. what are your plans in the

eulogy? >> my plans are to really amplify what the family has said and what the family attorney ben crump who i call the attorney general black america has said and that is we owe it to tyre nichols that he not have suffered this untimely and unreasonable police response that led to his death that it not go in vain. we need to pass federal legislation. we need the george floyd justice in policing act. vice president kamala harris has said she will be joining us today, many members of congress. we've been on zoom calls with senators. we need to stop being episotle about police reform going from one funeral and one situation to the next and really do what the movement in the '60s before my time did and that is lead the federal legislation.

i'm in the building this morning where martin luther king was killed, the lorraine motel, now the national civil rights museum. you see behind me one of the exhibits. i am a man. that's what they marched in the streets of memphis, tennessee, where i am today when dr. king came to support sanitation workers. we come today to support a mother and a father and the siblings of tyre to say he was a man, a man that deserved to live and not be killed by those that call themselves elite police and acted more like gangsters and thugs and they ought to be arrested. >> reverend al, sadly you are not new to this. you've done too many funerals. and you're here at another major, major, major funeral in this country. how do we balance going forward? we tried before. how do we balance going forward

that there's a specific group of people in this country, poor people, minority people, who need policing in their neighborhoods more than most of the rest of us who live in affluent suburbs perhaps or safe parts of cities, and yet we are surrounded by a specific group of people, young black men, young minorities, who are put at lethal threat from policing in some of these neighborhoods. how do we balance that in this country going forward? how do we talk about it? >> i think that's a very critical question. and the way we balance it is by having legislation that supports how civil rights and at the same time legislation that supports us from crime. and we do it the same way we do in other areas. how do we police other areas and keep crime rates down but we don't see police abuse and police brutality go up.

so the same way you know how to police on one side of memphis where you keep murders down and you keep robberies down, you know how to do the same on our side of memphis if you had the will. since you don't have the will, we must have the law. and let's not forget, mike, that these were black cops that we are dealing with here. all five were black. now they are taking one of the whites that had come to join them and was part of that crowd that night. they have taken him off duty. they have not indicted him yet. but we're standing up against police abuse. i don't believe these five black cops would have done this to a white youngster in a white neighborhood. >> correct. >> joe scarborough said in the last hour. so you still dealing with racism. and i do not understand how the same police department and the same police superiors can get it right on one side of town and get it wrong on the other side

of town. all they have to do is be equal across the board. when they are not, you get tyre nichols' kinds of situations. >> reverend al sharpton, thank you very much. we'll be looking forward to hearing your eulogy later today. thank you so much for coming on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," actor alec baldwin has been charged in connection to the fatal shooting on the set of the film "rust." but do prosecutors have enough evidence to find him guilty? we'll ask a legal expert. plus, new fundraising numbers show donald trump's 2024 campaign is off to an under whelming start. what it could mean for this white house bid. also ahead, house republicans are kicking off their long-planned investigations into the biden administration. we'll be joined by a democratic member of the house oversight committee for what the democrat's strategy will be to push back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. k.

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like newday usa. alec baldwin now officially is facing involuntary manslaughter charge for his role in the shooting death of cinematographer halyna hutchins. the district attorney unvideo gamed new evidence in a court filing yesterday claiming baldwin acted recklessly as did the armorer on set who faces the same charge. miguel almaguer has the latest. >> are you doing okay? >> no, i'm not actually. >> okay. >> reporter: calling his behavior reckless on the set of "rust" the district attorney says alec baldwin directly caused the death of cinematographer helena hutchins, in a new statement of probable cause, the d.a. says, baldwin was not present for required firearms training prior to the commencement of filming. then was later distracted and

talking on his cell phone to his family during the training. cutting the hour-long session in half. >> i let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off. >> reporter: the explosive new allegations also dispute baldwin's assertion he never pulled the trig memp the d.a. saying they have photos and video that clearly show the actor's finger on the trigger multiple times. >> i would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them, never. >> reporter: with baldwin's attorney calling the charges miscarriage of justice, they pointed to the public assertion he is an expert in the realm of firearms and film making. investigators say baldwin should have never handled the weapon in a negligent manner. >> the gun was in his hand when he pulled the trigger. and that was the main action that killed halyna hutchins. >> reporter: after finding six live rounds on the set, including one on baldwin's holster, the d.a. the armorer loaded the gun given to baldwin

with the 25-year-old also charged with involuntary manslaughter, her attorney's say gutierrez-reed asked to use a plastic gun for the rehearsal and was told no. her lawyers adding, we will fight these charges. why was hannah gutierrez-reed charged with involuntary manslaughter. >> she was in charge of the actual weapons and making sure they were secure and safe. >> reporter: this morning, allegations of a fatal chain of critical mistakes as the actor and armorer face the possibility of serious prison time. >> nbc's miguel almaguer reporting there. let's bring in legal analyst danny cevallos. good to see you again. you looked through this charging document. does any of this new information change your opinion about the prosecution's case against alec baldwin? >> no. i've tried to be objective but this is an example of an overcharge. and the reason -- there are several reasons for that. you saw sound of alec baldwin's interview. he didn't do himself any favors giving those interviews.

lawyers uniformly two facts that we're aware of. number one, we tell everyone, never, ever, ever sit down for an interview with investigators. fact number two, despite that, people do it any way. and alec baldwin gave interviews, not only to law enforcement but on air, on tv, and he said by the way, the most damaging thing was not that he said i didn't pull the trigger. it's that he said i would never point a gun at anyone and fire. very significant because he seems to admit that he was aware he had a firearm and he seems to admit that he understood it to be a dangerous firearm and not a prop. so that's very problematic in alec baldwin. >> so in short he proved it's possible perhaps to talk yourself into an indictment? >> people do this all the time. so often prosecutors decide they're going to charge someone and then they go to everything they've ever said on social mode media, incarcerateincarcerated,

phone calls are very hurt. this is not uncommon. there's a human instinct to try to talk yourself out of trouble. that's why there are tv shores galore of criminals or suspects sitting down with police and talking -- trying to talk their way out of trouble and talking their way into a prison cell. >> so danny, let's talk about reasonable doubt. we were just talking in the break almost universally everyone i talked about around hollywood, actors and behind the scenes who say however you feel about alec baldwin, this is not his fault. that's the view of hollywood any way. there should be layers upon layers of security before that gun gets to him and if in fact, he was told it was a cold gun, then it really wasn't his fault. so what are prosecutors up against in terms of reasonable doubt. >> what you just said is very significant because it tells us that almost certainly the defense will be able to secure an expert, credentials expert in the industry will take the stand, raise his hand, take the oath and educate the jury about

the fact that this was not baldwin's fault. other people are responsible and then in closing you can bet you're going to hear an argument or some version of this. the prosecution charged this cooperating witness, the first assistant director who came in here and testified against baldwin. yet this is someone that the experts told you had much more responsibility for the safety of a firearm. now, why did the prosecution do that? mike, i'll tell you why. because they had tunnel vision from the beginning for alec baldwin. they wanted that fancy pants hollywood elite and they were going to do anything they could to get it, including giving a sweetheart deal to the person who likely should have been really sitting in that defendant's chair. now how did i do? >> that was pretty solid. but yeah, further on that point, the idea that shouldn't -- to willie's question about the safety levels that people said, baldwin should be protected because the gun had to go through all these steps. aren't there others here who could face charges or is this

die is cast with baldwin? >> in all likelihood this is probably it. but you bring up a good point. that's a major fact for the defense. they're going to put up this entire chain of command and show how this was a failure on many levels not just the armorer, the first assistant director and maybe other folks. the more they distribute that responsibility, the closer you get to reasonable doubt. again becomes a jury argument in the end. look at all the other people. by the way, we haven't heard the defense's side of the story yet. they're probably going to be able to interview people on set who will come on and point the finger maybe at other people and the more people that are responsible, the less responsible alec baldwin is. you know, i can't help but be reminded of the brandon lee killing, decades ago which have a similar on set shooting and they declined to prosecute in that case because they decided what should have been decided here is that there were many different mistakes all along the chain of custody and the chain of command. therefore no one person was

completely responsible. but at the end of the day, they're going to have experts and maybe even baldwin himself testify that i was handed something that i didn't believe was a firearm. why? because i was assured by the people who should know that it was not a firearm. and again, giving that statement, i would never point a firearm at someone, he's kind of cut off some of his own defense because he could have said i don't believe this is a firearm. this might as well be a block of wood for all i knew. >> so, danny, i'm still wondering, though, you talk about even distributing responsibility because there's lots of different layers here and points along the way where things obviously went wrong, where charges may seem justified. at the same time, the more you distribute responsibility, doesn't it come back to alec baldwin in the end even more because he had oversight over the production as a producer? and he was the person holding what was a weapon. >> that might be the case if we

were talking about civil responsibility, about joint and several liability. that would probably be a compelling argument. but when we're talking about a criminal case and the prosecution must prove their case against this defendant beyond a reasonable doubt and alec baldwin and the armorer are not charged with conspiracy. they're charged individually. so the more people you can point to, the less evidence, the less that the jury can pin responsibility -- i mean criminal responsibility, on that single defendant -- really in this case two defendants sitting at the defense table. again, you know, by the way, if i'm alec baldwin, i'm not looking to sever this case and have a separate trial from the armorer. i'm looking to come in and point the finger at each other. the more they point the finger at each other might help their case. >> we will see. msnbc legal analyst and star of howard 101 on radio danny is a value loes. >> russian destable investigation extend beyond eastern europe.

the mercenary group backed by a putin ally with a growing footprint in africa. that's next on "morning joe." footprint in africa. that's next on "morning joe. g c♪ ♪ i know what's right for me. ♪ ♪ i've got a plan to which i'm sticking. ♪ ♪ my doc wrote me the script. ♪ ♪ box came by mail. ♪ ♪ showed up on friday. ♪ ♪ i screened with cologuard and did it my way! ♪ cologuard is a one-of-a kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪ (group) i did it my way! ♪

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♪♪ ten minutes before the top of the hour. the u.s. has stepped up sanctions against russia's private military firm the wagner group. labeling it as a criminal organization that is continuing wide-spread atrocities and human rights abuses after gaining notoriety for its brutality on the gaining notoriety. but our next guest says the ukraine is not the only place where the outfit is making inroads. colin clark is director of policy and research at the consulting firm, and also with us, former spokesperson to the

u.n. colin, tell us about this group as a whole and where around the world it is. i am looking at a lot at africa -- it's not just ukraine. >> yeah, it's a group that is an extension of russian foreign policy. as you mentioned, they are active throughout parts of mow sapb beak. this is a mercenary network that goes in and props up dictators and contracts concessions that is used to help the kremlin. >> what can the u.s. do to try and limit the aims? >> this is a sign of russian

desperation. they have delved into prisons, and they are used as expendable resources. we talk all the time about great power competition, but russia is not a great power. great powers don't have to go into jails to recruit manpower. >> there has been talk of sanctioning the wagner group. >> by sanctioning the group, it has been sanctioned since 2017. the practical affect is they freeze anything they have, and they can't access the u.s. financial system. they probably are not part of

that, but global market forces are unleashed, and it isolates that group further, and the practical affect is the same in terms of financial -- isolating them from the financial system. when you say this is a terrorists group and what they are engaged in, you are saying the russian government is officially tied to a terrorists organization, and you are also telling african leaders, you are working and hiring a terrorists organization, and that's going to be a problem if you want military or u.s. economic assistance. >> the wagner group, they have become the most effective fighting force russia has had recently. they have been at the forefront of a couple victories the russians have had of late, and they proven to be fairly formidable. what can be done to take out their legs? >> you highlighted a big

problem, because it's actively happening in ukraine where you have russian soldiers that are demoralized and tired and weak, and these mercenaries are being sent in and actively being recruited from prisons, and president zelenskyy said himself he expect russia to launch a new offensive, so when you are talking about pushing back on their activity in ukraine specifically, that goes back to u.s. military aid. i have no doubt that that in addition to other -- this new offensive and this push to kind of help ukraine is what led to this decision to give them tanks from europe and the united states. >> colin, what is the potential for conflict between russia and china over the rape and purchase of africa? >> that's a great question. i think we've seen russia acting

in a repay shus manner. they are destabilizing the continent. when the russians are done destabilizing these regions they will leave and we will be left dealing with al qaeda affiliates, and then the administration will have to send troops there in an area that is now destabilized further. >> thank you both very much for your insight on this this morning. we appreciate it. coming up, addressing the impasse over the debt ceiling. plus, one of our next guest was in the white house back in 2011 during another debt ceiling stand off, jason furman, who

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♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ president biden is set to travel to philadelphia this week to discuss an infrastructure project that will replace lead pipes, but how are philadelphians supposed to collect their debts? >> president biden has been on the road promoting his infrastructure law, but today he gets the first chance to negotiate face-to-face with the king of negotiating, kevin mccarthy. i say that sarcastically, and it's the first meeting since kevin mccarthy became speaker in such great negotiations. and the oversight committee holds its first meeting since the gop took control of the chamber and that panel now has a

few controversial members. and now looking at the federal reserve on interest rates. welcome back to "morning joe." it's wednesday, february 1st, along with joe, willie and me, and we have mike barnicle still with us this hour. we start this hour, the third hour of "morning joe" with the meeting between president biden and kevin mccarthy. their first get together since mccarthy got the gavel. top white house advisers sent mccarthy a memo asking him to make a commitment that the u.s. will not default on its debt, and also laying out the republicans' fiscal goals. the letter reaffirms the biden administration's consistent messaging, that the white house wants a clean debt ceiling raised with no concessions. in a response, here's what kevin

mccarthy said. >> we know the best way they can do that is to say they are willing to negotiate, because the only irresponsible thing is to say we are not going to talk about it. sounds childish to me. >> they are asking not to destroy the u.s. economy and the good credit of the united states of america, and also could you let us know, what is your budget going to look like? we need to know where you are coming from if we are going to negotiate. you know what our position is, but mccarthy won't give the biden administration any information, i guess, because, like we said before, they want to cut social security, they want to cut medicare and they promised they will cut defense

spending by $75 billion during the most dangerous period in recent history. >> speaker mccarthy made promises to the 20 or so republicans for their votes to become speaker and now he's having to walk that line by saying i am going to distract something. we have kristen welker and sahil kapur live on capitol hill. kristen, i will start with you. what is reasonable to expect out of the meeting just after 3:00 this afternoon? some of the expectations have been managed already there may not be big breaking news after the meeting today? >> that's a good way to say it, for all of the reasons you and joe and mika were just talking about, the expectations could not be lower.

think about the floor, and the expectations are below there. there's no chance they will make a deal to raise the debt limit. think of it as a starting point. there will be dozens more between now and the summer. both sides are going to draw lines in the stand. president biden, he said he will not negotiate a deal to raise the debt limit, and it's basically like the balance on a credit card, the debt america already racked up, and the white house is basically accusing republicans of trying to cut things like medicare and social. mccarthy is insisting that's not the case, but he has not been specific about what cuts he actually wants to see, so that's a real challenge. realistically both sides probably won't reach a deal until this summer, and it's not until june the nation would

default and that could lead to economic calamity. yesterday i asked president biden about this. i said will you negotiate with speaker mccarthy when you meet with him tomorrow, and his response to me was "show me your budget. >> so let's take this to the other end of pennsylvania avenue, speaker mccarthy heading to the white house. >> mccarthy's goal at this moment is to draw president biden into the negotiation and get him to start trading offers back and forth by portraying the redline president biden put on the debt limit as unreasonable and reckless. mccarthy put out a tweet yesterday responding to the white house memo. you see it on the screen here. he said mr. president i have seen your staff's memo, and i am

not interested in playing political games. and as kristen just pointed out, president biden said the same stuff publicly. the onus on house republicans is to act first. they need to come up with a bill that has 218 points, and they will have to find 218 votes out of their slim majority, and it's far from clear how or whether they can do that. one man that has successfully negotiated with president biden in the past is mitch mcconnell, the senate republican leader. let's have a listen to what he said yesterday. >> i think the deal has to be cut, obviously, between the house majority and the democratic president in order to have a chance to survive over here, so we're all behind kevin and wishing him well in the negotiations. >> it's worth remembering that biden and mccarthy come into the

meeting with no prior relationship and vastly different styles. biden is known as an old school moderate and made it his mission to crush the trump policies, and mccarthy's rise is owed more to his talents as a relationship builder and his strength at the inside game here at the house of representatives, and that's what he is uniquely known for. kevin mccarthy was seven years old when joe biden was first elected to the senate. i put this to senator john cornyn. he said it's probably not going to be a warm and intimate relationship. it's a start, and unclear how this one ends. >> interesting. nbc's kristen welker and sahil

kapur, thank you for your reporting this morning. joining us now, former chair president obama's council. mccarthy has to answer to far right extremist holding his speakership hostage. >> i think the good news here is that's the starting premise. i would love to hear it more clearly from speaker mccarthy that under no circumstances he would allow that to happen. there are 218 votes in the house to raise the debt limit, and that's 212 democrats plus a handful of republicans. the challenge, of course, is getting it to the floor and getting it to a floor in a world where that could be politically difficult and costly for speaker mccarthy, and that's what scares

me. >> and what did the obama administration do when congress did not want to raise the debt ceiling? >> in many ways 2011 was more conducive to doing a grand deal than now, and it still didn't work out. we had months of negotiations. everything was on the table. republicans were willing to put revenue and tax increases on the table in those negotiations. ultimately we couldn't come to a deal. nothing good came out of it except a lot of damage and that's why in his second term president obama accepted the next stance reagan did before him, and trump did after him, and that was we are not going to negotiate over this. >> willie, that looks like the reagan position is actually the position that joe biden is taking right now, because again you can't negotiate with somebody that doesn't tell you what they support and don't

support, and kevin mccarthy can't tell them because he's got caucus that is so fractured that no matter what he does, he risks losing the speakership. >> yeah, there are some ideas floating out there among congressional republicans, but no plan that speaker mccarthy can present to the president in a meeting today. jonathan, it seems like the president and white house says show me the budget you have. >> that is the message. very little is expected from the meeting and they are not going to budge on this whatsoever. we will continue to talk to this as we head to june. jason, i want to switch gears. later today we will hear from the fed, and give us your overall analysis as to how the fed has been handling inflation and what you think of the health of the american economy as there

seems to be growing optimism about a soft landing. >> yeah, so i think the fed has over the last six or nine months did a very good job. it pivoted and moved really, really rapidly. despite lots of, you know, hand wringing and the like, the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 50 years, and the inflation rate is coming down. today there are almost certain to raise rates, and mortgage rates have been declining a bit lately. in terms of the soft landing looking forward, the challenge is that inflation is coming down but is it coming down all the way to the 2% the fed wants it to come down to? i am much less sure about that, so i am worried the last part of their job is the hardest part and they have not done that yet. they are taking all the right steps for now.

>> former chair of president obama's council. thank you. we have an update now on news that broke at the end of our program yesterday. george santos is stepping down from his committee assignments. he put out a statement yesterday reading in part this, with the ongoing attention surrounding both my personal and campaign financial investigations i submitted a request to speaker mccarthy that i be temporarily recused from my committee assignments until i am cleared. here's what he had to say about that yesterday. >> did mccarthy tell you to step away from the committees -- >> sorry, nobody tells me to do anything. i made a decision on my own that i thought would be representative -- >> yeah, i met with george santos yesterday and i think it was an appropriate decision

until he can clear everything up he's off the committees. >> was that something you discussed in the meeting? >> we had a discussion and he asked if he could do that and i think it's the appropriate decision. >> and meanwhile the new york republican blamed the media for his problems. >> i wonder where he got that? >> i don't know. >> there must be one big just flaring flagrant example of that, in, i don't know, donald trump. anyway, santos sat down with one news america yesterday and he hit back at those calling him out for his lies. >> i think it's important that america understands, you know, that a lot can be said, a lot can be done, but that people should be judged on their actions and not by trial by fire through the media, which is what

i experienced for the last few weeks. i grew up in humble beginnings in queens and new york city. people like me aren't supposed to do big things in life, and when we do, it disrupts the system. i know that a lot of people want to create the narrative that i faked my way to congress, which is absolutely categorically false. i worked hard and i have built ground up a career through experience, through knowledge and through self education. you know, i think it's amazing that i have to sit here and be spoken down to on a regular basis yet again by the media. >> santos then responded to a question about the multiple lies and exaggerations that he made on the campaign trail. >> i am just going to say, look, it was a bad decision, poor

judgment. i felt the need to do it because i felt without a diploma i would be looked down on. there's no circumstance -- what i might have done during the campaign does not reflect what is being done in the office. i have said i was sorry many times. i behaved as if i am sorry. look, if you want to compare emotions. people show emotions differently. i am sorry, deeply sorry. i have fielded calls and called supporters to apologize directly to them for that. i don't know what is asked of me right now when you ask, oh, you have not shown remorse or you don't seem to look sorry. i don't know what looking sorry looks like to you. i've made my sincere apology multiple times.

i thoroughly apologize for lying about my education and embellishing the resume. i made that very, very clear. i don't know what more can be said other than admitting is there anything more humbling, humiliating than admitting that -- >> you have seen a movie about george santos' life. i can't believe how much we played there. anyway, mike, he says he doesn't know what being sorry looks like, because he's not sorry, first of all. what is he supposed to do? quit. leave. you have been caught saying your family was in the holocaust -- >> it's not that you have been caught, it's that you did it. >> your mother died on 9/11. you lied about your education. you lied about everything. he's lied about absolutely everything. what is he supposed to do? quit and retire.

an overwhelmingly number of people in his district think he should quit. republicans thinks he should quit. everybody except kevin mccarthy thinks he should quit. >> it started out as a funny story and it was fodder for a lot of people like us who made fun of him and everything like that, and it's really a sad story. i indicated this earlier a couple weeks ago. i bumped into a doctor that works in boston, a psychiatric hospital, and he says that george santos is actually a perfect portrayal of self loathing, that he is clearly so disgusted with himself and the life he led, a life of made-up stuff and he hates himself, and that portrayal of hating himself

came out in that interview, he said i grew up in meager means in jackson heights and queens. it's a sad story. if you live in his congressional district you have to be horribly embarrassed you voted for him. >> yeah. >> joining us now, we have a member of the oversight committee, the congresswoman of vermont. thank you for coming on this morning. >> what do you expect to be happening in your committee in the coming weeks and months? >> appreciate the question. i was thinking about this this morning. how much can i expect when i know there's a majority on the republican side in that committee who are election deniers and people that did not certify the election and they pedal in misinformation. it's difficult to be optimistic, but i am a glass half full kind of gal, and there are important

things to do, like investigating the post office and that's affecting everyday people, and the job of the oversight committee is to show up and work on behalf of the american people, and i -- my -- my expectations are modest, but i am constantly trying to find people to partner with. >> i worked on the oversight committee, and it can get tough at times, but we were able to get things done, was able to get things done with elijah cummings and others. i am curious, though, you know, i am a big believer, and sometimes it's frustrates mika, but i can sit down and talk with anybody and make a deal with anybody. but you bring up a great point. how do you deal with -- how do you come to resolution with people are election deniers and

believe in jewish space lasers, and spread some of the most horrible anti-democratic conspiracy theories over the past four years? >> that's it. if we can't agree on basic facts it makes it difficult to partner. >> exactly. >> i am so hopefully that we all ran on similar campaign themes, which is bottom line, protecting this democracy. you were just speaking earlier about the fact that george santos lied about his family's history and the holocaust. i actually did lose a grandparent in the holocaust, and i want to make sure that we are defending democracy. it starts with lies. it starts with misinformation. that's what we have been living under for years now. i am ready to go toe-to-toe with

these people on what the facts are and shoring up this democracy. you have to believe in it to be in these halls of congress, and i still do. >> congresswoman, good morning. jonathan law mere here. we talked about the difficulties of bipartisanship there, and we will see it on display in the oversight committee, and the republicans are going to distract with family matters. how do you combat that? >> we have to show up as a voice of reason and clarity and clarity of purpose, really. it goes to what i was saying before. i will be looking for people across the aisle to partner on things that are impacting my rural state back home. one of the things that should not be partisan is the issue around postal delivery. i will try and find those connections.

it's difficult. i was just talking to members of my caucus that we need to, as a freshman class, continue to reach out to other freshmen because we have to do a restart. the american people are counting on us to find a way to get work done on regular people, on their behalf. >> great to have you on the show. thank you very much for your service. we will see you again soon. willie, i understand we have breaking news? >> yeah, from the world of sports. tom brady just announced his retirement for a second time in a video posted to social media just minutes ago. >> good morning, guys. i'll get to the point right away. i am retiring. for good. i know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when i woke up this morning i figured i would just press record and let

you guys know first. won't be long winded. you only get one super emotional retirement essay and i used mine up last year. i thank you guys so much, to every single one of you for supporting me. my family, my friends, my teammates, my competitors. i could go on forever. there's too many. thank you, guys, for allowing me to live my absolute dream. i wouldn't change a thing. love you all. >> tom brady getting choked up there at the end. so he has won seven super bowls including that improbable one with tampa bay a couple years ago. he's been the super bowl mvp many times, and famously the 199th pick in the draft, and he went on to be the greatest to ever do it. >> no doubt about that, willie. he is the greatest to ever do

it. what you saw there is actually the real tom brady. he's the product of great parenting. his mother and father are wonderful people that instilled values in him and i think he's retiring finally now because he realized, finally, maybe a while ago that his life has been disrupted. he lost his wife, who divorced him. he is truly devoted to his children. he's a genuinely good guy, jonathan, and i think you saw a real element of tom brady in that quit. >> yeah, no question there. i am certainly sorry to see him go. willie laid out his resume, and he's not just the greatest quarterback, but the greatest player in history. there have been rumors a few days ago that we talked about on the show with the 49ers now likely needing a quarterback that maybe he would come back for one more year there, and maybe that would be a storybook

finale for brady, but he says, no, that's it, that he is done for good this time. you know, he will leave behind an unmatched legacy in the nfl. he was the defining player for decades in the league's greatest star to have ever. >> no doubt the greatest ever. i thought before him that montana, perhaps, was the greatest quarterback ever. tom brady pushed aside all questions on whether it was montana or whoever. it was brady. many people looked at this past year as sort of a blemish on his record, but nobody remembers hank aaron going and playing with the milwaukee brewers, and the great moments, they never

remember willie mays in his final year, but they remember his incredible extraordinary career. same thing with tom brady, they will remember all the super bowls, and the super bowl at tampa bay and wonder how in the world this guy was able to do it. unfortunately for me, as a falcons fan, that extraordinary comeback against the atlanta falcons. but, willie, what i love about tom brady -- first of all, i love the way he said his good-bye to the nfl. it was nice, to the point, and showed great humility. i was watching clips this past week. the nfl has films where they mic people up, and it showed brady walking after the game, and you think they are all such fierce

competitors, they all came up to him like they were little kids, like after the game they had beaten brady, and what are they doing, these big middle linebackers are going up and saying, hey, i have been a fan since i was a kid. i have been a fan my whole life. would you mind signing my jersey? another guy would come up and say i want you to know it's an honor to be with you. would you mind signing something for me. again, the respect that he has among his peers, second to none. they're not playing with another player in the nfl, even these tough guys know they are playing with the best that ever was. >> yeah, and most of the players in the nfl now grew up watching tom brady. that's just a fact if you look at the disparity in age. some of them probably were not born when bledsoe got hit in 2001 in the game against the jets, and tom brady trots out on

the field, the rest is history. he did his best with the bucs and had a statistical season. brady was at the point now where guys would intercept his pass and hold on to the ball and come up after the game and say, mr. brady, could you please sign my interception ball. >> he signed it. >> yeah, he signed it, and it became a strange side show in some ways. no question he has the ability at 45 years old to put up huge numbers this year, and when it's time, it's time, and you can see it on his face there. >> joe put his finger on one of the magic aspects of sports, and specifically at this level, the professional level. no one garnered respect from people than those that play the same game and know what the game is, no matter if it's pro

baseball, basketball or whatever. to come up to tom brady and ask him to sign a ball that they intercepted is a sign of respect and not a sign of disrespect. brady gets it and he respect the game. he earned every inch and ounce of respect he obtained. >> a class act throughout. and in all professional sports, we live in a culture where it's about winning and championship. no more position in any sport gets more blame than the nfl quarterback. he has records and more super bowl championships, seven, than any other team has. >> it's set in stone. he's michael jordan, wayne

gretzky -- pick your hero. we'll be right back on "morning joe." g joe. my asthma felt anything but normal. ♪ ♪ it was time for a nunormal with nucala. nucala is a once-monthly add-on treatment for severe eosinophilic asthma that can mean less oral steroids. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala.

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with no line activation fees or term contracts. saving you up to 60% a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. today is a day of mourning in memphis where tyre nichols will be laid to rest. vice president kamala harris will attend his funeral. tyre nichols' mother and stepfather invited her while speaking on the phone. and the mother of breonna taylor and the brother of george floyd will attend. al sharpton will be there.

>> because we will continue in tyre's name to head up to march continue's mountain top. that's why we wanted to start this right on this sacred ground. this is holy ground. and this family now is ours and they are in the hands of history. >> reverend sharpton joins us from memphis, talking about the mountain top speech the night before reverend king was killed. what comfort can you offer the family around this horrible, horrible tragedy? >> well, the only comfort that i can offer them is that we will stand with them and fight in the name of tyre and others are to try and change the legal and legislative structure that deals with policing in this country. we are united, including the family of tyre nichols around

passing the george floyd justice and policing act. i think there's a new drive. i have been talking with my colleagues and civil rights leadership as well as members of the senate to really try and push police reform in light of this. last night, as you said, we had the press conference and family and i stood at the spot where dr. king gave his last speech. the next day he was killed. i am standing in the building of the lorraine motel that is now the national civil rights museum where he was actually killed. my youngest daughter was with me and i showed her the balcony where he was and then went to dinner and a man blew his brains out. we are here now where five black

cops beat a man to death, and there's no federal legislation that addresses this, and it shows the shame that we have of what has happened to tyre nichols. to think that dr. king died to put blacks on the police force and they are acting in as a brutal force as any racist, and i will address that, i think the first black woman vice president will be there. there was the human carnage to show how low we could be. now we have to rise up together and fight this. we can't just accept it. >> reverend, nice to see you, even under these circumstances. you know, americans of all backgrounds and especially black

americans have watched this similar kind of tragedy unfold again and again, and you, yourself, have gone to be with families in this kind of pain again and again. do you have any kind of 30,000-foot thoughts on kind of the success so far of this police reform strategy? do you feel like this is a moment to rethink that tragedy or is progress being made, or is there a situation where you just want to keep marching forward? is there any thought how successful police reform strategies are? here we are again, just another family -- it seems so piecemeal to so many americans that we have to watch people suffer again and again while seeing inaction on the hill. >> well, it is very burdensome for those of us doing the

marching and who have been with the families, it does start to feel like piecemeal. but in the state of new york, there's a law against choke holds, the eric gardener law. and in other states we have seen, there will be statewide legislation. the failure is national. the strategy certainly is rethought ever time we can. i think that we must continue to put people in and to pressure those that are in. some are now facing re-election in '24, and we may be able to get it now. even when we failed to get the george floyd policing act after george floyd, we did get the president of the united states, president biden stepped forward and did an executive order around some of the same things

we wanted in terms of body cameras and other things that was in the george floyd bill. president biden signed that executive order. so those of us that are in the struggle don't just wait on high profile situations like this. we keep going every day. it took dr. king, and again, i am in the building he was killed in, and it took them from a 1955 bus boycott in montgomery to 1964. it's not a sprint, but it's a marathon. you run until you break the ribbon, and we are going to do that. how trump's social media posts about stormy daniels are doing nothing to help his case. plus, the criminal case

against alec baldwin. the actor could face jail time if convicted in the shooting death of cinematographer, halyna hutchins. we'll have the latest next on "morning joe."

♪♪ yesterday we reported on the manhattan grand jury that will hear evidence about the alleged hush money payments that president trump paid to adult film star, stormy daniels, during his 2016 presidential campaign. the former president addressed it on social media, essentially confirming that it happened, writing with respect to the stormy nonsense, it's very old and happened a long time ago. long past very publicly known and accepted deadline -- of the statute of limitations. so yucky. daniels responded on twitter saying thanks for just admitting

i was telling the truth about everything. >> jonathan, the way he set this up, i have always said, the personal stuff is the personal stuff, but the federal elections commission would look at any candidate if a member of congress had told a staff member, in this case, it was michael cohen, hey, listen, i need you to get hush money to somebody i was in a relationship in two weeks before the election, i mean -- that person would have been busted two weeks after the fcc found out about it. it's crazy it has not been an issue before, because it would have with any member of the house of representatives or any member of the senate. >> yeah, the former president relitigating some of his worst times in office, and he does --

>> by the way, what did he call you in the held sinky thing? >> he called me a third-rate reporter. let's not put words in his mouth. >> but what he's doing here, in both of the issues, he is admitting -- he admitted in the stormy daniels tweet that he broke the law, and then after you busted him, he's admitting all these years later that, yes, he trusted an ex-kbg agent. >> yes. back to the stormy daniels matter, not only is it a confession on social media, and so not that many people saw it

because it was on truth social, and we could run into legal trouble. we are talking to analysts saying there were questions all along why the manhattan d.a. was slow to bring it up, and it seemed like they were not going to, and now the d.a. has revisited it. we can tick through the list, and in terms of the number of legal cases currently facing donald trump, but this is one that is immediate and a charge appears to seem likely, because you wouldn't go to the grand jury if you didn't think you could get a charge. now a conviction is a different matter, we will see. but if he had a staffer pay this money to protect his reputation, and that could be four years in prison if convicted. >> he just added to the case. what a dumdum. >> the whole thing is --

>> as president he can't be charged. >> it has been two years since he was president, and the manhattan d.a. dragging their feet, and prosecutors quitting because they are afraid of donald trump. i don't know. >> okay. actor and producer alec baldwin has been formerly charged for the shooting on the set of "rust." the allegations include baldwin not taking his weapons training seriously. nbc news national correspondent, miguel almaguer, as the latest details. >> we have unfortunate news to tell you. >> what? >> she didn't make it. >> the santa fe county district attorney officially charged alec baldwin with involuntarily manslaughter, arguing he directly caused the death of cinematographer, halyna hutchins. the d.a. says baldwin was not

present for required firearms training prior to the commencement of filming and was distracted and talking on his cell phone to his family during the training cutting the session in half. the explosive allegation shows baldwin has his finger on the trigger multiple times before firing the shot that killed hutchins. >> he understands what the proper protocol is for safety and he was disregarding that. >> and his attorney has called the charge a says he handled the weapon in a negligent manner and aimed the revolver directly at the crew. >> i would never point a gun at someone and fire at them. >> reporter: the da believes it was hannah gutierrez reed who was in charge of guns on the set who loaded the weapon and assistant director halls who handed it to baldwin.

the attorneys representing gutierrez reed, say, we will fight these charges. do you think they're equally culpable here? >> i do. >> reporter: if convicted the actor and armerer could face six years behind bars for a real life tragedy on a low budget movie set. coming up -- >> donald trump is president right now. >> he's currently president? >> absolutely. >> he's still president. there's a lot of things this biden does not have like the presidential seal and things like that that are pretty obvious. >> biden doesn't have the presidential seal? >> huh-uh. >> when he speaks there's a presidential seal in front of him. >> it's not real. >> our next guest went to donald trump's event in south carolina over the weekend. jordan klepper joins the table. e ♪ this feels so right... ♪

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welcome back to "morning joe." five minutes before the top of the fourth hour of "morning joe." live look at new york city for you. let's take a look at the morning papers, headlines across the country. let's start in south carolina where the "independent mall" has a front page story about the state attorney general asking the supreme court to reconsider the abortion law. they struck down the abortion when a heart beat is detected, ruling it violates the state's constitution right to privacy. now the attorney general says the constitution is clear, arguing, quote, the framers of our privacy provision did not conceive this provision as creating a right to abortion. in new york, "the buffalo news" reports the city is facing a class-action lawsuit for not adding fluoride to its water

system. the mayor recently disclosed city leaders quietly stopped adding the mineral seven years ago. residents argue this is helpful to their health and are seeking $160 million in damages. city leaders say they stopped using the mineral because they were using an outdated system and they plan to resume it some time this year. and "the advocate" leads with 12 monkeys stolen from a zoo in louisiana. officials say at least one thief broke into the zoo over the weekend and took about a third of their squarely monkey population. police are now reviewing security footage and trying to identify a suspect. the monkeys may have been targeted for illegal sale. next hour we'll get you updated on the missing monkeys at the dallas zoo, the latest in a series of bizarre animal incidents over the past few weeks. also ahead, how the political standoff off the debt ceiling could impacts the

economy. we have live reports from capitol hill and the nasdaq. and more on tom brady announcing this morning that he is retiring. this time for good. "morning joe" is coming right back. i've never been healthier. shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today.

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look at los angeles. up and running this morning. time to get up, everybody. we've got a lot to get to this hour, including president joe biden and speaker kevin mccarthy sitting down at the white house in the hopes of ending the standoff over the debt ceiling. meanwhile, the biden administration is blasting big oil for record profits. exxonmobil's earnings aren't just a high for the company, it's now a record for any u.s., european oil giant ever. >> they made a lot of money. also ahead, an update on the strange story out of dallas we told you about yesterday. there were monkeys that disappeared and they were found -- i swear to god, kind of like i'm supposed to leave this hanging so people keep watching. found in a closet. that's all i'm going to say. >> a million monkeys with a million typewriters writing scripts for morning shows. >> found in a closet far away. >> really? and tom brady is the top trending topic this morning because he is retiring again.

crushing jonathan lemire's hopes of playing the game. we'll get to tom brady's announcement in a moment, which is heartfelt and sad. we'll play it for you. we begin in memphis, where a funeral will be held later this morning for tyre nichols, the 29-year-old father who was seen brutally beaten by memphis police at a traffic stop early this month. we think it was a traffic stop. he later died from his injuries. vice president kamala harris is scheduled to attend the service. nbc news correspondent priscilla thompson with the latest. >> reporter: this morning the family of tyre nichols is preparing for one last good-bye. speaking in the same place martin luther king jr. delivered his last speech 55 years ago. >> he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, to look over, and i've seen the promise land.

i may not get there with you. >> reporter: nichols' family vowing to press on toward king's mountain top. >> we have a long fight ahead of us. >> reporter: that call for change comes as the investigation into the officers charged with nichols' murder intensifies. two memphis residents telling nbc news exclusively, they had a violent encounter more than two years ago with one of the former officers now charged in nichols' death. glenn harris and demarius admitted they fled cops because they had a registered handgun and a small amount of pot. when police stopped them, they say now ex-cop emmitt martin ii pulled a gun and punched him in the face. and harris says he put a knee in on his neck, put a gun in his face and said, i'll blow your

head off. they never filed a complaint. the allegations, the latest claim being made against the memphis police department in the wake of nichols' deadly beating. seven officers are off the job, including five terminated and charged with murder. attorneys for two of the men charged say they'll plead not guilty. it comes as the disciplinary records of the other former officers are coming to light, including two who were previously disciplined, according to personnel files reviewed by the new york tooimsz. desmond mills jr. and haley were reprimanded for failing to file mandatory reports about using force. nichols' family calling for calm as they prepare to lay him to rest. >> if my brother was here today and he had to say something, he would tell us to do this peaceful. >> nbc's priscilla thompson reporting from memphis. more on that story in a bit. meanwhile n washington, president joe biden and house

speaker kevin mccarthy are set to meet at the white house to discuss the debt ceiling, according to a white house memo. the president plans to pose two questions to mccarthy, the first, whether he will, quote, commit to the bedrock principle the united states will never default on its financial obligations and when will mccarthy and house republicans release their budget proposal? joining us now, co-founder of punchbowl news, jake sherman. good morning. i understand you spoke with speaker mccarthy ahead of today's meeting. what did he tell you and should we expect anything, really, out of this meeting today? >> well, you shouldn't expect much. this is the first meeting, four or five months from the debt ceiling needed to be raised. it's probably june or july. i put those two questions to mccarthy, those two questions the president will ask him today. he said, yes, the debt ceiling, he understands, as a principle needs to be raised. he told me that back in october when i pressed him on a campaign swing i did with him. number two, the budget, the budget will come out on march

9th and the house has six weeks to put out their budget. those aren't questions. the budget question is not really a question. whether he wants to raise the debt ceiling is a major question. but he says, yes. the real question is this, on two sides, number one, will biden negotiate? he says no now but he's having this meeting and the white house is privately, at least to me, telling me, if we came to a deal, can mccarthy pass it? mccarthy says yes to that. number two, what does mccarthy want to cut? he says he wants to revert to old spending numbers. meaning the government, in his estimation, is spending too much money right now. he wants to go back to 2022 spending. so a lower number than currently in the federal budget. those are big questions. how do you get from a to b is a massive, massive question. i will say this. i'm not sure sitting here today that a debt ceiling without some negotiations could pass the

senate. we're a long way away but this is a crucial understanding of where the two sides are. as mccarthy put it to me yesterday, this is a paraphrase, we have to dance at some point. the question is whether the music starts playing now or later. that's his estimation as he goes into this meeting. >> this is jonathan. as you say, little expected from today but they are sitting down, which is noteworthy. tell us what you know about their relationship. we know biden and mccarthy don't go back as far as biden and mcconnell, to be clear, but they have had dealings in the past. tell us what you know about them, what report, if any, do the two have? >> these are two insiders, john, that much is clear, in that they've both been around washington for a while. mccarthy not nearly as long as biden. back in the days when biden was vice president and barack obama was dealing with john boehner

and mccarthy, mccarthy had breakfast on several occasions with biden at the naval observatory. listen, biden was in a much different position all those years ago, a dozen years ago. i talked to mcconnell about this yesterday. mcconnell talks about how he was able to craft that limit deals with biden. that was a different biden a dozen years ago, for better or worse, everyone can decide about that. but their relationship is fine. it's perfunctory. yesterday biden called mccarthy a decent man but said he gave up too much in his quest for speakership. that's probably true in some regards. but they don't have much of a relationship but they have to have it because mccarthy has told me on multiple occasions he wants to negotiate this with biden. he doesn't want schumer, he doesn't want mcconnell. he wants this to be biden/mccarthy. we'll see if he's able to work that out. >> co-founder of punchbowl news, jake sherman, thank you very

much. let's bring in the co-anchor of cnbc "squawk box," andrew ross sorkin. andrew, what can we expect? >> in terms of what we can expect relating to the debt ceiling or relating to the fed today, two things worth pointing out. i don't think wall street on this debt ceiling issue is taking this into -- i don't want to say into consideration, but i think for them, this is just theater at the moment. the question is when this becomes some midnight drama and if, in fact, there's a view this is all going to tip over. that view, i don't think is there. that's not what's moving the markets right now. what's moving the markets right now is what the federal reserve is going to say later today. jay powell will be speaking. really not necessarily how much he raises interest rates. that's baked into the cake. it's much more tonally whether he plans to slow down later this year. we saw the adp employment payroll numbers come out, 106,000 new jobs. that was a lot less than where

we were before. that might mean the economy is cooling a bit. as we've discussed so many times, that oddly may be a good thing, at least from the perspective of the federal reserve. we'll see what kind of language he uses. i think people will be keying off that more than anything. >> you know, it's really interesting, andrew. looking at breaking news. it looks like -- a couple interesting stories out of europe. yesterday find out the eurozone actually grew faster last year than both china or the united states. that's pretty remarkable considering what we are expecting at the beginning of the year because of the outbreak of the war there. but also today, a real belief that even though there's that expansion, a real belief that inflation is slowing down. they got some good numbers this morning. so, what's that mean? seems like things are going the right direction in europe right now. >> look, i think this goes to the question of is there a possibility of a soft landing,

not just here in the u.s., but in europe? i think that's increasingly the, quote, unquote, take. i will say, not to be a pessimist or a cynic or skeptic, but i do think it's worth at least acknowledging that a lot of what we're seeing is sort of a glass half full view of all of this. what we don't know is what happens between russia and ukraine. where that really goes. we don't know about -- there is the possibility of shocks to the system. yes, if everything were to go as is and we were somehow on a glide path, this would be great news. the world invariably at some point in any given year, something happens and the question is, what is that and what's going to be the impact. >> you know, even if you look structurally at europe over the next several years, they have broken away from the hyperdependence on russian energy. that's only going to make

europe, the eu, the eurozone that much stronger in the future. and what we're talking about energy, my god, these oil profits. they're massive. i mean, you're -- i can't believe you're not going to see increasing pressure from washington, d.c. >> huge pressure. you're already seeing it from the white house in terms of, you know, efforts to try to impose some kind of windfall profits tax. that's something they've done in europe. something they have not done here in the u.s. is that theater? is there something more that's happening? interestingly, another piece of news that relates to all this this morning, not just are we seeing these massive profits, but bp this morning, and they're obviously european or at least a british oil company, they're actually moving away, interestingly, from all -- not all but some of their clean tech efforts. here was a firm that had spent the last 20 years, since that terrible oil spill, trying to reposition itself as something

more than an oil company. now it's saying actually maybe that was a mistake to some degree. i don't know if they put it in that stark language. >> all those warm and fuzzy commercials. >> birds getting cleaned up. >> and people going, i think waterfalls are pretty. they just go on and on. you're going, wait a second, why is an oil company doing this? >> they're done. >> now they're done. we're all -- we're about fossil fuels. so, can you explain to the viewers that maybe aren't as connected as you are to the news day in and day out, why are the oil companies making such massive profits this year? >> well, i think we can go across the board here, but, you know, if you just look at the price at the pump, if you look at what we've seen with the refine -- the way the oil complex works, it's not just pulling oil out of the ground, it's then refining the oil, getting it -- all of that has been able to be done at a level where, clearly, we are all

paying for it in sort of a massive way. the question, and this is what the white house is saying, why -- shouldn't they be lowering prices? and the truth -- >> why shouldn't they? >> yes, they should be. look, it depends what you believe about both markets and capitalism and the like. they would say that they are supposed to get the highest price that they humanly can. we as consumers are supposed to say that we want the lowest price that we can humanly get. unfortunately, right now, they have more leverage than the consumer does in terms of how much oil is available. obviously, the ukraine/russia war plays into all of this. >> all right, cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, thank you very much. >> thank you, andrew. coming up on "morning joe," the latest on a controversial oscar nomination and the decision by the academy on whether the selection would be revoked. can we talk about all the

choices? what a week. plus, the rock and roll hall of fame nominations were announced moments ago. we'll tell you who made the cut. also ahead, pro football talks mike florio joins us to talk about tom brady's legacy now that it appears he's officially walking away from the game for good. "morning joe" is coming right back. ght back my asthma felt anything but normal. a blood test helped show my asthma is driven by eosinophils, which nucala helps reduce. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. nucala is not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala.

oh, yeah, baby. ♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." it's 18 past the hour. >> what a song playing right now. >> joe would like me not to talk, just so he can listen to this song. >> the spinners. >> you got it? >> there's a connection. >> there is? >> there's a connection here. >> this just in from the music world, the rock and roll hall of fame has announce the nominees for class of 2023. this year's ballot features 14

nominees, including kate bush, sheryl crow, missy elliott, willie nelson, the white stripes, the spinners and -- >> warren zevon, as well as so many more. to be eligible, they have to released their first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. for missy elliott and white stripes, this is their first year meeting that requirement. >> that's exciting. >> this is all very exciting. i'm looking at this list going, wait a second. and i'm thinking before we're going to hear this story -- >> rage against the machine. >> -- there are two or three i can talk about. where do they get these great bands. sheryl crow, we love her. joy division, it's mind-blowing. they created the manchester sound back in like '78. like, they were lightyears ahead of their time. i'm shocked they're not in right now. willie nelson, of course.

rage, whoa. the spinners, everybody knows how much i love the spinners. the white stripes, warren zevon. but some incredible, incredible acts here, willie. >> yeah, you know, we were just saying, i feel like this happens every year, too. the list comes out and you go, boy, i could make a case for every one of them. and then you say, wait a minute, willie nelson isn't in the rock and roll hall of fame? warren zevon isn't in the rock and roll hall of fame? i mean, cyndi lauper, george michael, tribe called quest, incredibly influential on hip-hop, missy elliott a trailblazer. kate bush, got a boost when were

song was on "stranger things". >> rage against the machine, they could take everyone to school on playing the guitar and he's not in the hall of fame? what is going on with these people. >> again, warren zevon, there's a guy you would have expected to be there ten years ago. i mean, soundgarden, of course. i mean, we could talk about everybody on the list. soundgarden, i talked about the post -- i talked about the manchester sound that sort of post punk sound. they were doing it like 50 years ago, but soundgarden, man, they were wrapped up in that seattle sound in the early '90s, jonathan. i mean, all great bands. all great acts here. >> yeah, great bands. soundgarden along with pearl jam and nirvana, the definitive groups coming out of seattle in the early '90s. a tribe called quest, hugely influential. george michael, how is george michael not already in the hall of fame? you know, certainly huge star

and hugely influential. yeah, you could make a case for just about anybody here. i know mike barnicle was focused on missy elliott. glad to see she finally gets her due. >> hoping, hoping. >> also, i mean, willie, i mean, god, i don't know, i'm so old. everything blurs together now. when did the white stripes break? early 2000s? >> over 20 years now. >> i remember when the white stripes broke. i was like, wait a second, a drummer, a guitar -- what? what? you listen to them. of course, they had all the massive hits, but even a song like "little rim," the white stripes are mind-blowing, right? they belong in the hall of fame. but then again, all of these acts do. it's good to know. you know, once in a while i'll see a list for like baseball hall of fame and i'll be like, who's that? who's this?

all of these people, all of these bands, all these acts belong there. >> yeah. it sure looks that way to me. i guess they have to -- they have to keep the evening down to a certain time, so they can't put anybody in. man, you can make a case for all of these. white stripes' debut album was in 1999. jack white is a musical genius. >> how do you explain -- seriously, how do you explain willie nelson not -- >> there used to be a line there wasn't rock and roll, but they've blown through that now. dolly parton went in this year at long last, jay z, the walls have been broken down. >> i mean, if you look at the list, though, my argument would be, again, and i think anybody that listens to music, anybody that knows music, has followed for a long time, seen how it's developed, you look at joy division, a band that was out in the 1970s, i mean, they all listened to the sex pistols and

said, let's create a brand-new sound. they create the manchester sound we associate with '78, '79. they were doing it a decade earlier. warren zevon, my god, again, a guy just quintessential songwriter. again, we can go on talking about this all day. a lot of people are saying, they almost did. i know, you -- you want a jerry jeff hall of fame. >> i do. >> we should go to texas and set up the hall of fame. >> would you take me? i love it. >> eats an icon. >> this is why we're not on the board, because we just let everybody in the door. come on through. parade of hall of famers. >> by the way, where's the jerry jeff statue? we need a jerry jeff statue. >> we do.

>> let's swing from the rock and roll hall of fame to academy awards. i don't know if you've been following this, a british actress, andrea riseborough will keep her oscar, nominated for best lead actress in the independent film "to leslie" which only made $27,000 at the box office. >> i am sick. >> i'm not going to do this again. i'm not. >> you? what about me? we were supposed to have a good life. i want this for you. >> i had a good life until you showed up. i'm not even 20. i can't even drink yet and i have to take care of my mother? i have to take care of you? i made one rule, no drinking and you couldn't list a [ bleep ] day. >> i'm sad.

i can't help it. i want to be a good momma. i want to be a good momma again, baby. i want to be a good momma. i do. i love you so much, baby. who are you calling? are you calling grandma? you do not call my mother! she is my mother! you do not call my mother! >> all right. so what's the controversy here? it's a little confusing even to me. the call came to the academy to revoke her nomination after she was publicly backed by hollywood stars in the weeks leading up to the announcement, a possible violation of oscars regulations? joining us to explain what she apparently did wrong, founding partner at media venture puck, reporter for the hollywood reporter. is it against the rules for another actor to come out in

support of an actress for a movie that didn't make money at the box office? >> no, it's not illegal to have people back you. it's what went on behind the scenes. there are very specific rules during the oscar campaigns of how you can contact people. what went on here is that the filmmaker of "to leslie," and his wife orchestrated a campaign a long with her manager to email and call and provide materials and set up all sorts of events and screenings, and things that went on behind the scenes to galvanize support. and those are what the academy referred to as causing concern. and what they said is they're not going to take away the nomination, but after looking into it, they are going to come up with some new rules to prevent this kind of aggressive, some would say harassment, others would just say outreach to the community to try to gin up support for films like this.

>> matthew, matthew, matthew, my god, it's almost like hollywood has like short term memory loss. this is what everybody does. this is what everybody has done. they take out full-page ads in "variety," take out full-page ads everywhere. my god, before he wasn't in jail, they back harvey weinstein. one won academy award after another because he openly campaigned for it. it's hard to believe this is even a controversy. >> well, nobody's saying you can't campaign. in fact, they're saying they encourage people to talk and have grassroots campaigns and word of mouth is what they're encouraging. but there is a very specific document, it's like a political campaign, there are rules that they promulgate to govern these campaigns.

and they're trying to prevent the kind of outright harassment and open lobbying. they specifically don't want lobbying. there were no rules, these campaigns would be on your doorstep every morning trying to get you to watch these movies, telling you to vote for things. they would be doing, you know, shuttles around town to the screenings. they specifically don't want members of the academy to do that. and this was a campaign that really pushed the boundary. they did not have the money of a traditional oscar campaign, so they decided to just go absolutely nuts on contacting people to the point where the allegations were they were providing social media material, please post here, please post there. in a key way, some of these materials and some of the people that posted were making comparisons to other actors. the academy does not like that because one of the actresses is francis fisher who posted about

andrea riceborough saying we don't have to vote for viola davis, you can just vote for andrea because the other actresses are a lock. that's a comparison that arguably disparages other candidates and the academy does not want that. >> how does this change things moving forward, do you think? >> well, we'll see. they haven't announced what those new rules are going to be. i suspect they'll wait until after the oscars in order to come up with these -- these new rules. i'm guessing they'll have specific rules about social media providing materials to people to post on social media and rules about -- very specific rules about emailing people and trying to get support for your movie via this harassment via email. >> matthew belloni, thank you very much. coming up, the dallas zoo catches a big break in its monkey mystery. >> this is where the monkeys were found in the typewriter.

>> i just said that. we'll tell you how they got the monkeys back after they disappeared under suspicious circumstances. you won't believe where they found them. bad news for students looking to cut corners with chatgpt. there's new ai that could let teachers know it came from algorithm. we'll look back on tom brady's legendary career following his second retirement from the nfl. this one's for good. mike florio with "pro football talk" joins us next on "morning joe." this week is your chance to try any - subway footlong for free. like the subway series menu. just buy any footlong in the app, and get one free. free monsters, free bosses, any footlong for free! this guy loves a great offer. so let's see some hustle!

in a video posted to social media this morning, legendary quarterback tom brady announced is he retiring from football. >> good morning, guys. i'll get to the point right away. i'm retiring. for good. i know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when i woke up this morning, i figured i would just press record, let you guys know first. so, i won't be long-winded. you only get one super emotional

retirement essay, and i used mine up last year. so, i really thank you guys so much, to every single one of you for supporting me. my family, my friends, teammates, my competitors, i could go on forever. there's too many. thank you, guys, for allowing me to live my absolute dream. i wouldn't change a thing. love you all. >> emotional there at the end. you can imagine why, saying i'm retiring for good. brady previously announced he was retiring exactly one year ago today before he changed his mind 40 days later and returned to play his 23rd nfl season with the tampa bay buccaneers this year. the 45-year-old, seven-time super bowl champion, three-time league mvp, is the nfl's all-time leader in passing yards and touchdown passes. and, of course, the winningest quarterback in nfl history. let's bring in creative

profootballtalk.com, our friend mike florio. great to see you. there has been talk in the last couple of days with everything going on with quarterback at san francisco, maybe that's where tom brady lands. he grew up as a fan, grew up in the area. what do you think went into his announcement this morning? >> well, there was a feeling he would play next year. he does a podcast every week. several weeks back, after a loss to the cleveland browns in overtime, he said, i would rather play and lose than not play at all. and i looked at the remaining schedule. there aren't many games left. so, if that's his position, he better be thinking about coming back for another year. but he had said all along that he was going to play through the age of 45. he turned 45 in august. he made it through 45. and he called it quits. and i think one other reality as well, he was going to become a free agent in march. this is the time of year where behind the scenes players explore what may or may not be out there. he may just have not gotten the reception he thought he was going to get.

the interest may not have been there to the degree he presumed he would have been. so he decided to call it quits and move on and be faithful to his vow to play until he turned 45. >> mike, we have the tom brady legacy talk exactly a year ago today. i think we can have it safely for good today. i mean, the numbers are staggering. we laid them out. there hasn't been for several years now any question about whether he is the greatest quarterback of all time. we were just talking, though, that hit on drew bledsoe that opened the door and injured him and brought tom brady onto the field, launching 23 seasons came, just for perspective on time, came a week and a half after 9/11. it was september 23, 2001. that's how long tom brady has been doing it at this level. >> yeah. and there was a point during the season, willie, where he reached the tipping point where more than half of his life had been spent in the national football league. and it really is an amazing example in longevity and

excellence. this year, his final year in the nfl at age 45, he set the season single record for passing attempts and completions. this was not a guy who limped to the finish. he still had plenty left. and that arm will still be there into his 50s. the question in recent years has been his legs, his ability to get away from these guys who are literally half his age, but he's shown he can get rid of the football so quickly, it doesn't matter. he's good enough to keep playing. there will be people who don't believe this one. he also said at one point during his podcast this year, the next time he retires t will be for good. but we've seen this movie before with other players, so, there will be a certain segment of the population that keeps one eye open on the possibility of an opportunity arising for tom brady and him being unable to say no to it. >> mike, jonathan. you went through individual statistics for tom brady, but speak to -- you're around the game so much, the sense he would

instill in teammates that no game was out of reach. most famously, the falcons super bowl, down 23-3, but he saw on a pretty bad back near team, he led them to a bunch of late fourth quarter comebacks. speak to how that will be part of the inherent brady legacy. >> that's a great point. that's why i believed the buccaneers could go on a deep playoff run and i thought they would beat the cowboys in the wild card round. we saw multiple occasions, down a couple of scores in the fourth quarter. he morphs into that superhero we're used to seeing. they go no huddle, up-tempo and completion after completion and completion and they come back and win the game. that is something that is rare. that is something we need to appreciate because we may never see again, especially with the number of years. we see players that have that mindset like joe burrow or patrick mahomes, but it's going to take some time to see somebody who's able to do it at that level for that many years. at some point, father time wins.

and in tom brady's case, he held off father time as long as he could. >> all right. mike florio, thank you very much. and we do have some breaking news to report to you right now. let's go right to nbc news chief white house correspondent kristen welker live at the white house with information just coming into us about a search at one of biden's residences, kristen? >> reporter: that's absolutely right. according to three sources familiar with this matter. fbi agents as we speak are searching president biden's rehoboth beach home for classified documents. this comes, of course, after there have been a discovery of a number of batches at a think tank here in washington and also at his home in wilmington, delaware. we know the fbi searched his home in wilmington, delaware, a couple of weeks ago and searched his think tank here in

washington in november. that was after that initial discovery was made of classified documents by biden attorneys. now, it's not clear what specifically they are searching for, how long they will be on the property, but we are told, and this is an important point, there is no search warrant, the white house counsel's office is investigating and this is planned. this is yet another datapoint in this ongoing issue. president biden, of course, as we know, we have learned that classified documents were initially found at his think tank here in washington. that, of course, comes and the white house points to the fact that classified documents were found in the former home of president trump in mar-a-lago. he refused to turn them over so the white house continues to try to make that distinction. throughout all of this we learned former vice president mike pence had classified documents in his possession. this is an ongoing issue. the national archives have asked all past presidents and vice

presidents to search their residences for classified documents. this is an ongoing problem for this white house because there's been this drip, drip, drip of information. the timing is significant. it comes a week before the president is set to deliver his state of the union address and some time after that we expect him to announce his bid for re-election. >> underline this. you say the biden team is fully cooperating and no search warrants involved? >> reporter: it's such an important point and i want to underscore that. according to a source familiar with the matter, the white house counsel's office is cooperating fully with this search. there was no search warrant that was issued. this was preplanned, so this was not a surprise search. this is something they've been doing in coordination with the white house counsel's office. that's really been a theme throughout this developing story. of course, we first learned about this several weeks ago and two months after the biden legal team initially found that first batch of classified documents at the think tank here in washington. the white house has continued to

stress that they are cooperating with the doj. of course, there is now a special counsel investigation that is getting under way this week to look into the president's handling of classified documents. that comes as there's a special counsel investigating former president trump's handling of classified documents. just extraordinary that you have the current and past president under investigation by special counsels. >> extraordinary. >> kristen welker, thank you very much. we appreciate the breaking news. jonathan, are you hearing anything from the white house or any thoughts on this? >> yeah. just now, actually, a statement from bob bauer, with the president's full support and cooperation, the doj is conducting a planned search at his home in rohoboth. it sought to do this work without advanced public knowledge and we agreed to cooperate. goes on to say the search today is the further step in doj's process that we're supporting and we will have further information at the conclusion of today's search.

we'll learn more about this later on, what they discover, if anything, but as noted in this statement and from the report there from the white house, this is something that was arranged in advance. i think we should frame two important things here. again, the stark difference between president biden cooperating with the probe, unlike former president trump when it came to classified documents. also this remains, at least so far, doesn't seem like a legal problem for the president. documents found, they were turned over, he followed procedure. but it's certainly a political one. it's the drip, drip, drip, this is staying in the headlines here just as the president seeks to turn the page to talk about his meeting with kevin mccarthy today, the state of the union next week, expected to travel soon thereafter, including the re-election kickoff. but he's still going to be dealing with this, at least for the foreseeable future. >> i'm hearing from direct sources that this is part of the process laid out in january, where they're going to search every residence and every possibility to make sure that documents are where they need to

be. still ahead, "the daily show's" jordan klepper is back on the show fresh off his trip to south carolina for former president trump's campaign stop where some people still believe trump is president. >> with an army. >> we'll be back with jordan klepper. ooh, we're firing up the chewy app. can't say no to these prices! hmm, clumping litter? resounding yes! salmon paté? love that for me! essentials? check! ooh, we have enough to splurge on catnip toys! we did it, i feel so accomplished. pet me, please! okay that's enough. now back to me time. luv you! great prices. happy pets. chewy. this week is your chance to try any - subway footlong for free. like the subway series menu. just buy any footlong in the app, and get one free.

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plus, superior nutrition. because the way we care is anything but ordinary. ♪♪ . this past weekend donald trump finally hit the campaign trail, so i headed down to south carolina for what was originally permitted as a maga rally but later downgraded to an intimate event. >> what is this event? >> it's a trump rally. >> it is a rally? >> i'd say it was. >> it's not a rally. >> it's somewhat of a rally, but it's not a big rally. >> now, i thought it was a rally. it's not a rally. it's a bunch of people standing in line. >> it's an event, it's an invited list only. >> this is a private event that

vips have been invited to. >> only heavily vetted vips were invited. >> that was a clip from the daily show's jordan cleper who has spent years talking to republicans at events across the country, or trump supporters, and he joins us once again now with more on that south carolina event which wasn't a rally. everyone standing on stage looked a little grim, jordan. >> jordan, tell us about the event/rally not a rally/event. >> apparently some people thought it was going to be a rally. it was downgraded to an intimate event, which is dangerous territory. >> never want that. >> manhattan prosecutors, grand jury, it's on the way, but when people arrived, it seemed to be more of a vip event. what we showed there is it wasn't necessarily vip caliber folks, sombrero trump was there as well as a lot of folks who had a hard time wrapping their

heads around this being a re-election campaign stop. some people were holding on to the idea that trump was still president. the it was muddled from the get-go. >> you know that, jordan, in scarborough country, everybody's a vip. >> no passport required. >> at the same event, jordan talked to a few people, get this. >> not once. >> i know that nobody watching will be shocked by this, who still believe donald trump is still president. >> donald trump is president right now. >> he's currently the president? >> absolutely! he is still president. there's a lot of things that this biden person does not have like the presidential seal and things like that that are pretty obvious. >> biden doesn't have the presidential seal. >> when he speaks there's a presidential seal in front of him. >> it's not real. >> the military were put in charge in 2018 when president

trump signed an executive order. >> the american military arms that are going to ukraine, we have donald trump to thank for that? >> no. >> that's two militaries. >> there's two -- there's two militaries? >> there's a good and a bad. >> there's two militaries. donald trump's in charge of the good one. >> yes. >> biden's in charge of the bad military? >> that's exactly right. >> there's a good one. there's a bad one. i think jordan, people watching they want to know one thing who's in charge of the space lasers, the good army or the bad army? >> the next vice president of the united states is going to get into those jewish space laser, that was some of the conversations we had out there on the road. it was definitely not something that only a couple of people said. i was shocked. again, this is folks who don't want to sit in an inconvenient truth that the person that they support may not be in control of the things that affect their lives. what you often see out there is they're not having these conversations with other people

who are pressing them. they're having these conversations with other people who agree with them. so these ideas of i think trump should still be in charge, therefore he is, therefore he's in charge with the military, doesn't carry water when somebody pushes back and says how does that actually work. >> you've been doing this for a while, obviously. are we boiling this down to the most hardcore believers? i mean, what is your -- what's your take on this? obviously willie and i and mika, we all talk about the friends we talk to that still believe a lot of conspiracy theories, but nothing at this level. i'm just curious where are you in your level of concern? obviously you're doing this for entertainment. talk about your personal level of concern as you're hearing this. >> people see these videos and they will accuse us of you're just cherry picking folks. you've got to talk to dozens of folks to get one person to say

the ukrainian war isn't happening. this was a very small event. we probably talked to 12 people. i think you watched nine of them. most of the folks we talked to, and again, people who come to trump events who want to talk, you can tell them by the capes that they wear. they tend to be the more extreme points of view. i don't want to base an entire movement on the folks who came ready to chat. the folks there still believe these wilder thoughts. they go into -- they're inviting folks in with ideas outside the norm. i am concerned about this movement. i don't think it's going to become more respectable. the size of it, that's something i don't have perspective on. >> jordan has taught us something important this morning. >> what's that? >> always judge a person by the cape they wear. >> jordan, you asked some of the people for their insights on the

current war in ukraine. >> int seen any news reports about, you know, this terrible war in ukraine. >> where did you get your news? >> news max. >> and they haven't covered it at all? >> i think that there's no war to cover. i think the whole thing is fabricated, and i think that zelenskyy who's the president of ukraine, i believe this is all extortion money. >> i spent a little time in hungary and i met people who were coming from ukraine to try to find safe haven. they're actual refugees fleeing what they said was a war zone. were they lying? >> i just think they might be actors as far as i know. i believe that they might be actors. >> all of those people i met in hungary, those aren't refugees? >> i believe that the government is paying them to do that. >> that's a lot of actors. if that's a sag gig, that's going to cost you billions. >> that's like 3 million actors. >> seriously, can you imagine? that's like a bigger cost than like heavens gate. >> this is avatar 3 money we're

talking. >> mike. >> people hate the media. they hate us, jordan, and so how is it that you carried off these interviews in such a friendly, open atmosphere with these people? they hate us. >> people hate the media, but they also love being on television. so the idea of having their voice heard and/or engaging with somebody who may have a different point of view than you and winning, that in itself is the brass ring. that curiosity often outweighs any media bias they're being told about. >> i'm curious, you have some people there believing trump is still president perhaps, doubting the war ever happened. did vladimir putin's name ever come up? were they supportive of him? >> we didn't talk about putin in this situation, although when we have in the past, there is more support for putin than there is for biden. and that was a joke that we would have back in the studios back in new york. you're like, if we go out there and we put putin up against biden, what are people going to support, and they're much more comfortable criticizing the biden administration than the putin one. >> all right, the daily show's

jordan cleper thank you so much. come back soon. we love having you on. a lot going on, so, so glad to see you. we do have to recap the breaking news. the fbi is searching president joe biden's beach house outside rehoboth beach, delaware, this morning. according to the president's personal attorney, this is a planned search and they are fully cooperating. we should underscore there are no search warrants involved. that news coming in from kristen welker and jonathan lemire. also hearing word from the white house that this is all part of the process that was laid out in january. that is what fully cooperating with the doj means is -- >> exactly. and jonathan lemire and mike barnicle in the remaining minute, we're going to let you choose one of two breaking news stories this morning. >> i have the monkeys. >> one is this search, the other is the monkeys were found in a closet somewhere? >> the monkeys were in a closet. >> it happens. >> from the dallas zoo, the monkeys that were missing, they were found in a closet outside

dallas in an abandoned home. >> all right. >> that's a good news story. >> nobody knows how they got there. they don't know who did it. >> some newscasts end with the squirrels. >> monkeys, documents. >> but let's talk about the documents. what can you tell us, jonathan, in the remaining moments? >> as discussed, no warning needed. these fbi agents currently at the house, expected to be there for several hours. this is president biden's vacation home where he does spend some time. the white house has said they'll update us later on today with what was discovered. >> we stepped all over the biggest story of the day, willie nelson still not in the rock and roll hall of fame. are you kidding me? >> true, true. >> tom brady's in the hall of fame. >> that does it for us this morning. >> that injustice is going to be rectified. >> josé diaz-balart picks up the coverage right now. good morning, 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific, i'm josé diaz-balart, and we are following breaking news. nbc news confirms that