"morning joe" starts right now. this is pitiful. a thousand people freezing their butts off, waiting to worship a rat. what a hype. groundhog day used to mean something in this town. they used to pull the hog out and eat hypocrites, all of ya. you got a problem with what i'm saying, larry? untie your tongue, and you come out here and talk, huh? am i upsetting you, princess? you want a prediction about the weather. you're asking the wrong phil. i'll give you a winter prediction. it's going to be cold. it's going to be gray. and it is going to last you for the rest of your life. >> yes. >> good morning to you. it is february 2nd. you know what that means. it's groundhog day. there you see it in

punxsutawney, pennsylvania. get your arms around that. they're waiting to see. >> i love it. >> will the groundhog see his shadow? >> fantastic. >> band is on stage. everyone is ready to go. >> we have to do the show live from there sometime. >> oh, my god, i'd love to do that. can we do the show live from punxsutawney? >> groundhog day for me is one of those things, i can never remember whether the groundhog sees its shadow, it's good or it's bad. it just doesn't stay with me. maybe because i don't care. i don't know. i don't know. >> but that would be fun. >> yeah. >> gobbler's knob. >> exactly. that's where we all want to go. we have a lot to get to this morning. i really want to hear that. including president joe biden's meeting at the white house with speaker kevin mccarthy. both sides were upbeat about their conversation. it appears we're not any closer to a deal on the debt ceiling, but we will follow the developments there. >> gave him a box of white house

m&ms, and mccarthy left happy. good first step. president trump sort of endorses a potential challenger in the 2024 presidential race. i'm not sure he knows what to do with this situation. that's what my gut is, my analysis. all of the people who used to suck up to him are now thinking of running against him. he's trying to thread the needle. meanwhile, on capitol hill, house republicans are expected to kick another democrat off an influential committee. we'll talk about whether that's retribution or what's going on there. >> what goes around comes around. >> it does. >> republicans need to be careful. >> yeah. along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. former aid to the george w. bush state departments, elise jordan. and secretary under president obama, robert gibbs. gibby is with us this morning.

>> quickly going back to what we talked about yesterday with -- >> about the monkeys? >> no. you're obsessed about the monkeys. >> okay. >> in the closet. >> weird. >> i know. >> tom brady. >> i'm obsessed with the monkeys, too. >> what's that? yeah, but tom brady retiring, i feel so bad, you know? here's a guy, what's he going to do? >> it was sad, when he was on the beach saying, "i'm done for good." >> willie remembers after i got out of congress, he'd kindly go with me to -- >> you also went to the beach. >> -- baseball card shows. i'd try to sell my copies of my official portrait, along with -- >> uh-huh. >> $2.95. not a lot of takers. i'm just afraid, willie. is that going to happen to tom brady? >> is he going to be on the beach going with the thing, looking for little -- >> the metal detecter. >> like a --

>> i'm worried about tom. >> the conventions were sad. we'd go to the convention center in st. pete, set up a card table. we'd have up the decorations from your career. pete rose would be a couple tables down with a line around the block. it'd be you and me standing there, trying to flag down anybody who came by. didn't make a lot of sales. softer landing for tom brady. remember, he has a 10-year, $375 million contract in place with fox sports. >> oh. >> i think he's going to be just fine. >> there you go, okay. >> so he's not going to have to -- >> he won't have to go like you. i found a tab can. >> good news. $375 million. going to -- i bet he'll be good at his job. >> he will. it is interesting to me. the guys at this level, michael jordan, derek jeter, wayne

gretzky, don't go to the analysis business. they ascend mt. everest, go to something else. >> it's hard for a player that great to talk about what made him great. so much of it with just instinct and hard work. brady also, throughout most of his career, careful with the press. he is pretty guarded. he has loosened up the last couple years since leaving new england and bill belichick. he has a podcast where he is funny on. occasionally, he is on social media. i think we saw peyton manning be successful with the manning brothers show he does with eli on monday night football. with brady, he's got this new contract. it is unclear, supposed to start whenever his playing career is done. that's now. fox has the super bowl in ten days. >> yup. >> i wouldn't be surprised if brady makes a cameo there to get this career started. >> good call. roll him out for the super bowl. >> willie, i can see fox already

using some of the things we've said this morning to promote their $375 million person. sort of funny on occasion, john lemire. >> biggest fan. >> he's going to be great. he's a nice guy. >> don't know how it'll go. i had no idea how tony romo would be. sometimes a little erratic as a quarterback. that guy would say, it's second down. this is what they're going to do. third down, he's going to throw an out pattern. they're going to set it up this time. he called it. after, like, a couple of weeks of listening to tony romo, you knew he had it. you either have it or you don't have it. i hope for fox and $375 million, yeah. but you never know, do you, until they get into the booth. >> he'll be great. i'm not saying he won't be great. just saying, some of these guys when you're that great, when you're the greatest of all time, they don't go to the commentary

business. but how fun has it been to have peyton manning, one of the greatest of all time, one of the three or four greatest quarterbacks of all time, sit and watch a game with him and get in his head? he is watching where the linebacker has moved up, so make the hot read. if we can get tom brady doing that, that'd be a gift to football fans. >> yeah. >> it'll be fun. >> good he has something lined up. right into a job. >> unlike me. thank god. >> no plans. okay, let's get to politics at six past the hour. former south carolina governor nikki haley is inviting supporters to a special announcement event on february 5th in charleston. the republican is expected to announce her 2024 bid for the white house. this would make her the second major candidate in the race, following donald trump. the former president responded to the news, posting this 2021 video on his social media page. >> he still has a lot of popularity. if he runs again in 2024, will

you support him? >> yes. >> if he decides that he is going to run, would that preclude any sort of run that you would possibly make yourself? >> i would not run if president trump ran. >> okay then. trump posted that video with the caption that reads, "nikki has to follow her heart, not her honor. she should definitely run." >> yeah, robert gibbs -- >> bigger story here is she's totally changed her mind and doesn't think that he is an issue. >> the question is, robert gibbs, at this point, can anybody really do anything to stop donald trump if donald trump decides he is actually going to run? >> he is running. >> well, he is saying his running, but you never know with him. he could be trying to make money. he is trying to avoid indictments. >> prosecution. there's a lot of legal cases against him. >> he wants to get on a debate stage. robert, can anybody take the guy down? he is still the champ inside the republican party. >> yeah, look, i think you saw this at the end of the 2016

primaries. people tried to play donald trump better than donald trump could. we found out nobody is better at being donald trump than donald trump. i think a bit of the irony here is that trump may actually benefit from an extraordinarily large republican field that does get in. it's sort of interesting that he's poking nikki haley for getting in. i think he is actually happy to have her in because, again, if you look back to the 2016 primaries, republicans get to a point where it's winner take off -- all in the states. donald trump won with less than 50% in the primaries, got all those delegates. you can imagine if there is a trump lane and not trump lane, if there's several candidates, a half dozen or more splitting up the not trump lane, and trump gets what he normally will get, he'll still rack up a lot of delegates and be in this process for extraordinarily long time. >> elise, nikki haley, governor hailey, haley, did

step out and criticize donald trump, about a month after january 6th. she said to this "politico." he let us down. he went down a path we shouldn't have followed. we shouldn't have listened to him. we can't let this happen again. shortly thereafter, she said, i wouldn't run against him if he decides to run. so i guess these people running against him need to make up their mind or decide how to walk the line, of being critical of donald trump if they want to be but also keeping some of his voters around. >> also, how they're going to deal with january 6th. >> yeah. >> that is an issue that divides republican voters. you have the, at lowest, 30% of voters who are always going to stick with donald trump. probably more than 35% or 38% maybe. what gibbs was saying, he benefits so much from a crowded republican field. right now, it looks like we're just going to see all of the mistakes of the 2016 republican primary happen again. you're going to see a lot of

candidates get in. you have nikki haley getting in, the second. mike pompeo definitely looks like he is preceding ahead with a run. what about tim scott? what about mike pence? what about ted cruz? i heard from an adviser to him that he is considering it, but he just isn't sure of the lane. i think that's the question that nikki haley has to ask herself. what is her lane in this primary? >> yeah. so many others that are talking about running. jonathan lemire, this is starting to take on the faint outlines of 2016, where you have washington republicans, even if they're trying to be trumpists, that are being critical of the edges of donald trump. yet, you look at -- you look at polls right now of republican primary voters. they are beyond extreme. the majority of them are beyond extreme. the majority of them believe that the election was stolen.

the majority of them have crazy views about trump's own vaccine. the majority of them are far outside the mainstream of american politics. and they're still going to be with donald trump. i really -- i think we're getting this divide again that we had in 2016. where the base was all in for trump, while some washington republicans were trying to be a bit rational and tried to straddle that line. there's no straddling it, it seems, still. >> yeah, i suppose it's appropriate that on groundhog day, we're getting a rerun of 2016. >> yeah. >> because that's what it looks like we're going to have. the difference is, i think the republican -- trump knew where the republican party was. instinctively, he knew where the base was in 2016 better than the establishment ever could. that was on issues like immigration and trade and things like that. that's the wall, that's where he struck a chord with them. the party, the base, has only

moved with him since. to your point, joe, it's become more radical, more extreme. it's moved more to the right. that's in line with where trump took them. so it's going to be hard for a mainstream -- a, quote, mainstream republican to find some other lane, to find some other place to try to beat him. that's why the candidate everyone is looking towards because, like, pompeo, pence, haley, what is the constituency? for now, the flavor of the month is desantis. we'll see when he actually gets out there, when he is nationally vetted, where that goes. but what desantis is trying to do is take on trump from the right on a bunch of issues, including on pandemic response and culture wars and the schools in florida and such. he's making the bet that you have to take on trump on trumpism. when we saw others try to out-trump trump, they lost and lost badly. trump, to this point, he's still got the base. >> speaking of ron desantis, the florida governor will head to alabama next month to headline the republican's winter dinner

on march 9th. while desantis is yet to announce anything, his advisers reportedly are preparing for a possible it presidential run. actively laying foundations for a national campaign. alabama, the primary state that helped secure trump his front-runner status in 2016, withining the state by double digits. sort of in his own oblique way, joe, ron desantis is, you know, he made that -- not even a criticism of donald trump, but offering a contrast perhaps the other day with donald trump. not saying much beyond that. we just -- he represents an alternative to donald trump in the minds of some republicans, i guess, who don't want the go along with trump and sees something close to donald trump that they could stomach. we don't know if he'll run, ron desantis, and if he does, we don't know what he'll look like outside the state lines of florida. >> it is looking like the republicans are going to have options. joe, there's going to be a small percentage that are die-hard, trump maga supporters, but for a

lot of republicans who might be a little concerned about the direction of their party or might have been a little concerned about issues like, for example, abortion, where the country is more in the middle about this, there will be options of nikki haley, mike pompeo, possibly mike pence, possibly ron desantis, as opposed to donald trump. i don't even know how many different legal cases potentially are brewing against him, potential indictments. we could start in georgia. we could start with the mar-a-lago documents. we could look at stormy daniels and that now heating up. we could look at taxes. you could look -- i mean, there are -- there's case after case after case. the 2020 election. the insurrection being built against him from the department of justice down to different states. >> right. >> i mean, there's a rape suit against him that is still going strong. >> yeah.

again -- >> this guy is drowning in legal problems. >> again, you bring all this up on groundhog day. it sounds like 2016. >> every day gets worse, though, for him. >> and every day, his base, the voters think it is a deep state conspiracy. robert gibbs, when i think of ron desantis, i'm reminded of the famous mike tyson quote, that everybody has a plan until the first time they're punched in the face. i mean, i saw ron desantis. you saw ron desantis debate charlie crist. crist had him tongue-tied. desantis is good with gestures, calling press conferences. he loves yelling, especially at female reporters. makes him feel tough. he walks off, and people give him lots of money. you know this better than any of us. on the presidential level, you get up on that debate stage, and when it's donald trump and ron

desantis, and he has nowhere to hide, i mean, come on. again, it's seeming like that tyson quote makes a lot of sense here. i don't -- i mean, what do you think? does desantis have a chance one-on-one against trump? >> well, i'd say a couple things. one, you point out really correctly that what we don't know is how somebody is going to perform on the national stage. you know, not a lot different than i think barack obama had when he first came out. he's not going to get a chance to practice off broadway before the play starts on opening night. so he's going to be scrutinized from the very beginning. i do think the one advantage that he's going to have, and you saw him try to use this in the response the other day to trump, which is, to use those credentials of having won significantly in florida and to build a record in thegoverning record he can use against him. we'll see whether he can slug it

out punch-for-punch. there may be that there's a strategy that doesn't slug it out punch-for-punch. it'll be interesting to watch. i don't think we'll know the candidate he potentially could be until we see him, certainly for a few weeks or couple months, out on the trail. it gets uneven. i remember traveling with then senator obama. at the beginning, he was not all that comfortable as a national candidate, not all that comfortable out on the stump every day. you sort of get the practice and learn it because you have to do it every single day. >> yeah. boy, he's a perfect example. i will say, he is a perfect -- i mean, you can line him up with ron desantis in this respect, you don't know how desantis in the end will do on the national stage. i was very skeptical that a state senator that just got elected to the united states senate was going to beat the clinton machine. >> right. >> he did. he made history. >> yeah.

>> sometimes it's lightning in a bottle. >> absolutely. robert, stay with us. we want to move now to ukraine really quickly. a new russian missile strike has destroyed an apartment building in the eastern ukrainian city and damaged several other structures, as well. rescue crews were searching through the rubble overnight, looking for any survivors. joining us from kyiv, ukraine, nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez. what more can you tell us about the latest strike? >> reporter: mika, this strike took place in the eastern city of kramatorsk, the next city on from bakhmut, the city where there is such intense fighting going on, even as we speak. that strike in kramatorsk once again hitting a civilian apartment building, just like we saw before in the city of denipro. the strike happened at night, when families are at home, sleep are asleep, they're trying to

stay warm in the depths of winter. ukrainian authorities saying at least three people killed in the strike. many, many more wounded. they are combing the rubble right now for any other survivors. president zelenskyy is pointing to this and saying, this is why we need advanced western weapons, including f-16s to protect our cities. but, mika, ukrainian civilians here in kyiv are not waiting for the west to deliver. they are crowdfunding themselves equipment for the ukrainian military. we met this week with a man named serhei. he, like president zelenskyy, is a former comedian, but he has turned into a fundraising powerhouse. he has raised $100 million for the ukrainian military so far, for everything from night vision goggles to sniper rifle scopes. above all, for drones. listen to a little of our conversation. how many of these have you sent? >> about 4,500. >> 4,500 drones to troops on the

front? >> only small drones. because we also buying and bringing to the front lines uaes, you know, big planes. >> reporter: now, there is a very large delegation of officials from the european union who are here in kyiv today. they are meeting with president zelenskyy to talk about the possibility of, one day, ukraine joining the eu. that would be huge for this country, huge for this country's economy. but it is not going to happen for years if it happens at all. the much more urgent concern here in kyiv is the possibility that vladimir putin is going to launch a fresh offensive leading up to the one-year anniversary of this war on february 24th. that is something the ukrainian defense minister has been warning about today. zelenskyy's chief of staff last night speaking to jake sullivan, president biden's national security adviser, as well as general mark milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, and the ukrainians are really trying to sound the alarm, not

just here in kyiv but also in washington, that the russians are regrouping. they could launch a new attack any day now. guys? >> nbc's raf sanchez, thank you very much for that report. still ahead on "morning joe," senate minority leader mitch mcconnell removes two powerful members from the commerce committee. was it retaliation for ousting him from leadership? plus, george santos with new scrutiny. the fbi is investigating the embattled lawmaker. also ahead, al sharpton joins us on the heels of his powerful eulogy at yesterday's funeral for tyre nichols. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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why do they go ahead? because they feel that there is no accountability. they feel that we are going to get angry a day or two, and then we're going on to something else. but some of us do this every day. some of us believe in the dream that has to come true. some of us are going to fight until we make this legislation happen. i don't know when. i don't know how, but we won't stop until we hold you accountable and change this system. >> that is part of reverend al sharpton's eulogy for tyre nichols yesterday in memphis. the nichols family laid their son, their relative, to rest following an emotional service celebrating and honoring his life. it's been almost a month since the traffic stop that ended with five police officers viciously beating nichols. he died three days later. his mother said her faith is the only thing keeping her going

after the death of her youngest child. >> tyre was a beautiful person. for this to happen to him, it's just unimaginable. the only thing that's keeping me going is the fact that i really, truly believe my son was sent here on an assignment from god. >> yes, he was. yes, ma'am. [ applause ] and i guess now his assignment is done. he's been taken home. >> an assignment from god. reverend al's passionate eulogy touched on tyre's final moments and the struggle for civil rights. >> home is where you are at peace. home is where you don't have to keep your dukes up.

home is where you're not vulnerable. home is where everything is all right. he said, "all i want to do is get home." i come to memphis to say the reason i keep going, is all i'm trying to do is get home. i want to get where they can't treat me with a double standard. we're asking to be treated equal. and to be treated fair. and just like they marched and boycotted and went to jail for nine years, from the '55 montgomery bus boycott to the '64 civil rights act, we gonna pay the same dues to get this george floyd justice and policing act. >> reverend al joins us now on set here in new york. rev, you have to do too many of these. another one yesterday in memphis. we're just talking as you sat

down, through the morning, there was a sense of purpose, a sense of mission in that service, including from rowvaughn wells, tyre nichols mother. she had the unforgettable line that brought tears to our eyes and chills up the spine, saying, "my son was on assignment from god." >> she was remarkable. i think people need to know that no one gave her those lines. she wasn't reading. this was from her heart. she really believes that he was on an assignment from god. i think that's what strengthens her to go through it. i don't care how much support you get, for a mother and stepfather to bury their child and look at his 4-year-old son every day, they'll never get over that. when all of the cameras are gone. she brought the human side, as well as vice president harry joining us, saying, we've got to pass the legislation. as you said, we keep going to these funerals.

we wait on the next one, rally. we wait on the next one. it is time for the congress to stop this and really up the ante legally, to say to police, you will be held accountable. >> what is your sense of that, rev? what is your sense of change at the federal level? it didn't go anywhere really, through all those negotiations in 2020 and into 2021. tim scott, cory booker, they were all working on it. it didn't go through. do you see this as a different moment? there are obviously a lot of skeptics out there. >> i talked to senator schumer and the legals of the eight legacy civil rights groups, including national action network, we're having a call with schumer and hakeem jeffries later today. there's a sense that maybe there can be a movement forward. some of the senators are up for re-election next year that were not up for re-election after george floyd. unfortunately, politics plays a lot in this. president biden is pushing hard. vice president harris coming to

the funeral sent a signal. we only needed a couple of votes, a few votes that could have given us the filibuster. it had passed the house last night, and i think there is a new sense of urgency. and i think when americans saw that video of a man, they didn't even ask him for his license and registration. they never said, "we stopped you for this crime." they just dragged him out the car and started beating him. a lot of americans said, "wait a minute now, this is a bridge too far." that's why we feel qualified immunity is taken off the table, where policemen know, i could be sued personally. i could lose my house, my car, my children having the wherewithal of education if they're going to college, i better be careful before i drag somebody out of the car and beat them, like i know it'll be all right and nobody is going to do anything about it. >> rev, you talked about the story of joseph in genesis. joseph and his brothers throwing

joseph into the pit. talked about how every time that happens, god pulls out. whether it's martin or trayvon or george, now tyre, pull them out of that pit and move even closer to the goal. it reminds me at the end of that story, the part of joseph's story that i find most inspiring and hopeful is what you were talking about. it's genesis 50:20, where joseph tells his brothers, who were weeping because they find out he is alive. not only is he alive, he's going to save their lives and their family's life and everybody else's life. he said, "what you meant for evil, god intended for good so that many lives may be saved." talk about that promise you delivered to the church

yesterday. >> yes. what the story of joseph is, it's really a story of tragedy turned into triumph. where joseph's brothers, jealous of him as the dreamer -- and i referred to dr. king who was the dreamer killed in memphis in '68. joseph's brothers had an envy of jealous, seeing him coming. they said, "let's kill him and see what happens to the dream." one brother had mercy and said, "throw him in the pit. we'll tell dad some ferocious animal got him." they threw him in the pit, their own brother. my story was that when they saw him again, he was a governor. they had come to the land to get food because they were the family. the brother they threw in the pit was the one that had to feed them. the whole moral of the story was that what they meant for evil, god made good. and i think that all of these tragedies, all of these families

rallying, could change how we deal with policing in america. i think voting rights and policing are the civil rights challenges of the 21st century, at least the first quarter. i think their sacrifice, their blood, will be redeeming. it is very important to tell people that, in the moment, we may look like we're in the pit, but this pit could be used for something that could change the whole land. i honestly and sincerely believe that. i was heartened by the fact this mother believes that, when she said she felt her son was on assignment from god. lastly, on a lighter note, mika, you see joe talks to willie about football. he and i talk bible on the phone. >> there you go. it's true. i hear it on the other end. they love talking about it. elise jordan, jump in. >> that's good that you're keeping up joe's spirituality. you help all of us. >> oh, vis versa, he keeps up mine sometimes.

>> you help all of us. i'm taking away that you felt hopeful almost amidst this tragedy, amidst all the suffering in memphis, that you actually do feel like this might be a breaking point and that something could change. if you had to name the number one thing in the george floyd bill, would you say it is qualified immunity? what has to be done immediately? >> i would say it is qualified immunity. i think what has to be done is for members of the senate to hear from their constituents. it needs to pass. and for them to realize this is beyond race. you know, in 2021, attorney ben crump, who i call the attorney general of black america, and i went to arkansas, maga land. he represented a white family who had been the victim of police brutality. now, we're in memphis dealing with black cops and saying they

should face justice. the argument now is, this is not just about race. certainly, i think race is at the core of it. i don't think these guys would have done that to a white guy. but this is about how are we going to police in a civilized society? i think that's what we must try to do. that's what i think we communicated yesterday. we're going to stay on this. >> rev, it was a beautiful eulogy. i just wish you didn't have to do it so often. reverend al sharpton. >> powerful. >> thank you so much. good to see you. mika? up next, the law that's been the target for republicans for the past 12 years. obamacare is not only still law, but it is thriving. steve rattner has charts on that. plus, there is still no deal on the debt ceiling following yesterday's meeting between president biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy. but senator tim kaine has a plan to protect americans from the threat of default. the virginia democrat is our guest this morning. also ahead, we'll speak with the director of the white house office of management and budget. "morning joe" will be right

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♪♪ willie, we have breaking news. >> still watching in punxsutawney, pennsylvania. >> from our nbc news desk. >> great celebration. >> it's crossing the wire right now. >> i want to hear this. >> pennsylvania governor josh shapiro is now in punxsutawney, pennsylvania. >> he's in the crowd. >> he's there somewhere. >> kind of cool. >> exactly. ♪♪ >> let's just listen for a second.

all right. we may be there next year. that's all i have to say. >> it's fun. >> looks great. >> good for governor shapiro. he's up early, checking out whether or not the groundhog is going to see his shadow. >> yeah. maybe he can tell us what that means. speaking of getting up early, robert gibbs -- >> yeah, he's in st. louis, i think. >> i want to start by thanking you for getting up in st. louis so early, an hour earlier. appreciate it. perfect day for you to be here. steve rattner is about to show his charts on obamacare. the enrollment keeps skyrocketing. republicans have been trying to kill obamacare now for a dozen years. the american people have continued to vote with their feet, continue to vote by enrolling. >> signing up, yeah. >> talk about that. i mean, we could get personal for a second. that has to mean a lot for you and others who fought so hard to make that happen. >> it certainly does.

i think it is an enduring part of the obama legacy. probably the biggest part of the obama legacy. it's heartening when you see the new enrollment numbers, to understand and feel the impact that it has on real americans. i go places and hear people tell stories about being able to get health insurance for the first time because they had a pre-existing condition that been allow them to be able to do that previously. and i think, you know, maybe most heartening, joe, is if you talk to people in health care, it is becoming an even more engrained part of the health care system. it is probably only going to continue to grow as people leave employer-based insurance because of the way their jobs are structured and purchase individual insurance. i think the best parts of the aca are just really getting started. i think even in five or ten years, those enrollment numbers are going to be even stronger. it is going to be an even bigger

part of our health care system. >> well, and let's also talk about the rough start it had. because i think that's good, it's a good reminder to all of us. whenever you roll out something this massive, there are going to be problems. but it was really rough at the beginning. health.gov i guess it is. >> oh, my gosh, yeah. >> nothing was working. it was a nightmare for you and a lot of other people early on. but, again, here we are 12 years later. sometimes things that have a huge impact on our lives don't start smoothly. >> yeah, nobody wants to remember the days of trying to logon and having the website not work after years of pointing to that moment of beginning to sign people up. but, again, i think it is that enduring legacy. it's the real resiliency of the plan and the program. again, i think every year, you see more and more people. i will say, too, you know, a big

shoutout, too, to president biden, who, working through legislation last year, strengthened the aca by continuing to provide the types of subsidies we saw during the pandemic to make those health care policies even more affordable. now extending those for a series of years, i think, is just another great way. we have fewer people that are uninsured in this country than ever before. that is a very, very good thing, regardless of your party. >> absolutely. >> it's made a huge difference on that front. you just look at the numbers. it is undeniable. again, we talk about the ups and the downs, the difficulties. again, the resilience of the program, i think, has been remarkable. you look at the two years that republicans controlled washington. donald trump's first two years, they were doing everything they could to try to kill it. they just couldn't do it. the numbers keep growing. let's bring in steve rattner.

he's got the charts. steve. >> i've got the charts. yes, robert and all his colleagues should feel unbelievably great about what they did for america when they passed obamacare against a lot of tough odds. to put the flesh on some bones of what you were talking about, this chart shows enrollments under the marketplace part of obamacare, where individuals who don't have insurance could go to buy insurance. you can see the latter part of the obama administration, it obviously ramped up from zero. you can see that we got up to about 12 million or 13 million americans buying their insurance on the exchanges. along comes donald trump who, as you also said, did basically everything he could to kill it. remember the famous vote on the floor of the senate with john mccain and his thumbs down. nonetheless, even though it did decline a little during the early trump years, it flat lined during that period. >> by the way, that's a good reminder. we're here, in part, also because of john mccain's thumb down. >> that have dramatic thumbs

down saved obamacare. as you said, notwithstanding everything else the trump administration did to try to kai kill it -- for example, they cut the budget for outreach and trying to get americans to sign up. they did all kinds of stuff. you can see it did go down a little under trump, came up, basically flat lined. as robert indicated, you've had this enormous surge of interest in the exchanges and a record number of people buying it. in part, because in the american rescue plan, the first piece of biden legislation, it contained some additional subsidies, additional incentives, additional money for outreach and getting people to sign up. lo and behold, people, if you build it, they will come. if you encourage them, they will come. sign-ups reached the record number you can see over on the right. so it's an enormous step forward that hasn't really gotten a heck of a lot of attention. then, as robert indicated, it led to a drop in the number of uninsured. we can take a look at that if

you want. what you'll see, as he suggested, is a record low number of people without insurance, down to 8% from roughly 15% plus or minus before the passage of obamacare. if you go back before medicare and medicaid, it was more like 25%. again, this is a combination of not just what i showed you on the exchanges, but also some things that the biden administration did, as well, to encourage states to sign up for expanded medicaid, which provided insurance to more people. >> steve, this last chart is fascinating. for all the protests from republican members of congress, republican senators, nine out of the ten highest enrollments are in republican states, red states if you want to call them that. >> look at the map, and you'll see something amazing. if you look at the ten states, i think really all of them, actually, are red states. oddly enough, florida of all places, where you have ron desantis leading his charge against virtually every

government program, has the highest level of enrollment. >> coming in at number one. desantis land is number one. >> what? >> i love it. >> number one for enrollments. then you can look across the sunbelt down there. you see texas. you see mississippi. you see alabama. you see all these states with huge medicare enrollments, as well as some in the great plains. fun fact for you, in the ten states, in the ten states with the highest enrollment under the affordable care act, every one of those ten senators, every republican voted against obamacare back in that 2017 vote that we were referring to a few minutes earlier. so their senators are voting one way. the residents of those states are voting with their pocketbooks and feet the other way, to try to get health insurance. >> robert gibbs, as we look at these states, the top ten states

for the affordable care act, obamacare, the top enrollment rates, democrats got exactly zero, zero electoral votes in 2020, as well as 2016, from all of these states. the hypocrisy is just -- it is just magnificent. it reminds me, robert, of what i've always said is one of my favorite polls of all time. while obamacare was being debated, a poll was out where they asked tea partiers two questions. one, do you support obamacare? of course, hardly any did. the second was, do you think the federal government should be involved in health care? of course, the numbers were astronomically low. then they asked the follow-up question. do you think medicare should be

done away with? you know, nobody supported that. they love their medicare, but they didn't want obamacare, supposedly. now, look at the numbers. they love their obamacare, but they like complaining about it even more. >> well, look, i think health care affordability is an issue that unites democrats, republicans, and independents. it's an issue that we continually see in polling and hear about that americans are concerned about. we just went through a pandemic where we know that people that didn't have access to health care are likely to be -- likely to have the co-morbidities that make things like the pandemic more damaging for them. i'm so glad to see the numbers and the impacts it is having. again, i think its best days really are still ahead of it. >> all right. robert gibbs. >> robert, thank you so much for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. >> so grateful for you being

here. elise, i need to go back to you. i want to show this map again. >> he likes the florida number one. >> i think -- >> it's the ultimate hypocrisy. >> i lived in florida, lived in georgia, lived in mississippi. >> a lot of republicans really hated obamacare and wanted to get rid of it again and again and again and again. >> isn't this really -- like, we look at these states. the hypocrisy is just amazing. i'll tell you what else the hypocrisy is amazing on. vaccinations. do you know, like i know, that before trump, mississippi had the highest vaccination rates in america? in fact, their laws were so tough on vaccinations, because they hated all the hippies out west who are anti-vaxers, that they didn't allow for a religious exemption, right? now, these same people who hate the federal government, they get

more money from the federal government per capita than anybody else, and they hate the affordable care act, hate obamacare. they're the first ones. i'm glad they're signing up for it, but they're the first ones, they would say, using their language, at the trough, getting the federal dollars. >> joe, they're also forced into these exchanges because so many of these states have refused to accept the billions of dollars that they would get for medicaid expansion. how many of these states who have the highest rate of opting in have chosen not to accept the money? because at this point, it is politically popular in mississippi. the voters are clamoring and begging for medicaid expansion. the politicians, the republican politicians in control just won't do it. >> yeah, there were extra incentives also in the arp to expand medicaid, and almost nobody did it. of the top ten states, utah is the only one that's expanded medicaid. all the rest refused to do it and have driven their people, to some degree, onto the exchanges.

>> all right. >> steve, stay with us if you could. ahead, we'll have the stories making front page headlines across the country. plus, some possible retaliation inside the republican party. we'll explain what is going on between senate minority leader mitch mcconnell and florida senator rick scott. >> huh. >> "morning joe" is coming right back. >> seems like the old crow still has some bite. >> oh, yeah.

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♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, february 2nd, groundhog day, everybody. >> beautiful view. >> president joe biden -- >> manhattan. >> -- and kevin mccarthy say their meeting at the white house yesterday was productive, but it ended without a deal on the debt

ceiling. we'll have more on their first face-to-face negotiations. plus, no deal, no problem. senator tim kaine is standing by to tell us about his plan to prevent a default. and on capitol hill today, republicans are expected to make good on a promise to remove democratic congresswoman ilhan omar from her seat on the house foreign affairs committee. we'll dig into that story just ahead. >> yeah, all of this really, willie, i mean, like i said, what goes around, comes around. >> i know. >> they're now -- we're going to be talking about adam schiff being taken off the intel committee. i mean, so the next speaker that comes in that's a democrat just can pick, basically pick who is going to be on the intel committee and who is not. ilhan omar, she's taken off the committee. you have mtg and others talking about jewish space lasers and other biggotted remarks, being

put on all these committees. remarkable performance by her yesterday in a committee. i found out, the person she was talking to yesterday at the committee also found out, that apparently, what was it, a middle school in illinois got $5.1 billion to push critical race theory, which is pretty interesting when you consider the entire state of illinois only got, like, $4.7 billion, $4.8 billion. as reported in illinois, jonathan weisman said, please, mtg, tell me where to find the elementary school in the state that got $5.1 billion for critical race theory or anything else. i'd like to pay it a visit. because the entire school-level budget for chicago public schools last year was $4.4 billion. >> these people are not serious. >> they're not serious. really -- >> this is a joke. >> again, what surprises me --

>> a bad joke. >> usually, some people when they get into positions of authority, they figure out how to handle themselves. >> rise up to it. >> they look at the mistakes people made in the past, and they're like, okay, we're not going to fall into that trap again. they're doing it every day. stupid comments every day. dumb gestures every day that proves they're just not serious about governing. >> that elementary school must have a really nice gym, huh, for $5.1 billion? luxury sweets, full concessions, the whole bit. >> what about the cafeteria, right? probably primed rib every day. >> oh, my gosh. >> room service. >> wolfgang puck has a to-go area. fantastic cafeteria. you took the words out of my mouth when they were talking about getting omar off the committee. marjorie taylor greene is a 9/11

truther on the committee. you want to play, we'll be in power again in a couple years, four years, and you won't get republicans on the committee. in theory, these were supposed to be bipartisan so you have differing views on the committees. if they want to do it this way, this is the way it'll be going forward. >> yeah. >> here it is. congresswoman marjorie taylor greene claiming that an elementary school in illinois received billions of dollars in federal funding, all to teach critical race theory. i guess they were going to put every kid in a rolls-royce and line them up. >> you tell me how much covid cash went to crt. >> crt? >> critical race theory in education. it's a racist curriculum used to teach children that, somehow, their white skin is not equal to black skin and other things in

edgeuation. >> yeah, i do not know that. but i do know there are provisions that the federal funds generally are not used -- supposed to be used for curriculum. >> oh. i have to tell you, in illinois, they rezceived $5.1 billion at n elementary school there that used it for equity and diversity. it's being used for these things. >> this is a washington generals -- this is like the washington generals equivalent of members of congress. they're just lining themselves up to get beaten badly in a couple years. >> yeah, i guess so. she made that statement, congresswoman greene, during the oversight and accountability's hearing, first of a congressional term. coming out with a bang. the republican was quickly called out on social media. jonathan weisman pointed out the entire school level budget for chicago public schools last year was $4.4 billion. a brief fact check there.

>> just impossible. >> wow. so president biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy met yesterday for more than an hour to try to find a path forward on the debt ceiling. no deal was reached, but the two leaders called the oval office meeting productive. this is good. >> yeah. >> white house said it was, quote, frank and straightforward. the two covered a range of issues, and biden is eager to work across the aisle in good faith. the white house also stressed it is the shared duty of biden and mccarthy not to allow an unprecedented and economically catastrophic default, and that any deal is non-negotiable. the statement ends by saying biden welcomes a separate discussion on reducing the country's debt. speaker mccarthy had this to say. >> we both have different perspectives on this, but i thought this was a good meeting. we promised we would continue the conversation. we'll see if we can get there.

i think at the end of the day, we can find common ground. i really do. i told the president i would like to see if we can come to an agreement long before the deadline. so i think this is a positive. this is exactly how government in america is designed. you have to find compromise. i was clear, we're not going to pass a clean debt ceiling. i mean, that's just -- >> you told him that directly? >> yeah. he told me perspectives that he wanted. >> i mean, jonathan lemire, we can ask no more, actually, from leaders, than what we just heard there. they were respectful. they both were respectful, came out, were very respectful afterwards. i mean, i understand mccarthy's position. that's the position of the caucus. we're not going to give -- we're not giving a clean debt ceiling. i understand biden's position. they've got to figure out a compromise, right? they've got to work the compromise. if one side doesn't want to mover, the other side, we'll see where it ends up.

but we've seen before people walk out of the white house and attack the person they just met with on budget negotiations. i've seen it before in the past. that's just bush league. there was none of that yesterday. listen, that's something we should applaud when we see it. two people working together from different parties with divergent views, trying to stop the economy from being wrecked. >> yeah. aides on both sides portrayed it as a positive. the meeting was respectful. the two men don't have much of a relationship. biden and mcconnell have known each other for decades. but this is the first inning of the process. little got done yesterday, to be expected. this is going to be a long haul. you know, white house aides have already floated an off-ramp for mccarthy. you form a committee or super committee to study the budget, to study future debt ceilings, thinking it'd be enough to save face while passing the

extension. that seems probably not going to be enough for the republican side. joe, really here, we know president biden has been very clear as to where he is standing and, frankly, not going to negotiate. for mccarthy, though, he's got two different sets of negotiations. he has to negotiate with the president, yes, and also members of his own caucus, his fellow republicans who are not, under any circumstance, going to vote to lift the debt ceiling. that'll be a concern. he has to figure out how to walk that tightrope. it wouldn't take much for his speakership to be challenged. mccarthy has a long road ahead in the months ahead to get to a deal he could sell. >> well, i think speaker mccarthy challenge will be getting the votes from the democrats. the five, six, seven votes he needs from the democrats, or the five, six, seven votes he needs from republicans, however this breaks. for him personally, keeping the speakership. the votes will be there.

there is a possibility of a discharge position. also gets the votes there, as well. we'll see how that goes. again, though, want to salute both leaders for a good -- >> civil. >> -- first day. civil. by the way, if you're complaining i'm saying that, well, you know, i'm sorry. i just don't want the economy to be recked. >> on personality problems. >> right now, markets are probably looking at that as a very positive first day. speaking of markets, breaking news from "reuters," the bank of england raises interest rates to 4% but says inflation probably peaked. they believe it is slowing down there as well as in the united states. good news. >> joining us now, democratic senator tim kaine of virginia. he's a member of the budget committee, and he says he's got a solution. >> he has a plan. >> so we don't default. what's the plan? >> guys, great to be with you. i have a two-stepper. first, the easiest thing is don't negotiate on the debt

ceiling. clean debt lift. if republicans want to negotiate on spending, guess what? we do it every year. that's called writing the budget. the house will write their version. senate will write our version. they'll be very different. then we sit at a table, hash it out. so speaker mccarthy and his republican majority, they've got the negotiating tool in their hand, which is the budget that they're writing for fy-'24, that we're working on right now. we shouldn't flirt with our credit worthiness. the amendment says we can't. the simplest solution is, confine it to the budget exercise. however, we get into this brinksmanship. we have a proposal based on something senator mcconnell did when president obama was president. we came up against a cliff. for one time, senator mcconnell wrote a rule that allowed the president to raise the debt ceiling to cover congress'

debts. it is congress that passes the budgetskur incurs the debt. the president can do that. if congress wants to, they can do a resolution of disapproval to stop the presidential action. basically, it is a simple thing. the president looks at what congress has done, the budgets that they put on the president's desk, raises the debt ceiling to cover congressional actions. if congress doesn't like the president's move, congress does a resolution of disapproval. it worked in 2011. it was a republican idea. if we did it and made it part of our kind of ongoing process, we would avoid these brinksmanship games that pop up every couple years and scare everyone. >> listening to that description, and we all recall it, 2011, seems today, as you talk about it, an entirely different era. seems like a century ago in american politics. >> it does. >> what do we do now, senator kaine, in regards to the deficit and the bill and everything like

that, when yesterday, the president of the united states met with the speaker of the house, who, this morning, or tomorrow morning, or next week, could be out of office because one of his people stands up and urges a vote on his speakership? what do we do about that? >> mike, you are right. that 2011, that seemed pretty catastrophic then. that was the first effort to flirt with the debt ceiling. oh, my gosh, but that seems like a marquee of queensbury rules compared to now, right? it's gotten so much tougher. the speaker mccarthy's support is very, very narrow. again, let's separate issues that don't have to be combined. the debt ceiling is just covering what congress has voted on. you know, if we don't want to do spending, then the house will put a spending plan on the table and they'll make cuts. the american public can see what the cuts are. the american public can see what the democratic proposal is, then we'll negotiate and reach a deal. you know, we have processes here to deal with these issues and

avoid the brinksmanship that scare the markets but, more importantly, scare people who are worried about their social security checks, snap benefits, police departments who need the money to hire officers, et cetera. >> you've been addressing long covid in the crisis of the country, and you have suffered yourself. i hope that your condition is improving. but i just want to know, why is it still a mystery for covid patients who are suffering in this country? some of them even have to go -- you read about covid long haulers having to go abroad to get treatment. there are blood tests available in the eu, over in south africa, that just aren't available here. what's being done to move beyond these regulatory boundaries and help people in america who are suffering? >> well, i'm so glad you asked that question. and i want to just quickly say, i am dealing with long covid, but i'm not suffering like others are. what i have is a nerve tingling

phenomenon, where 24/7, every nerve ending feels like it's tipped in al ka seltzer. it's been three years. it is harder to go to sleep. but there are people whose heart functions are up and down randomly, fatigue, brain fog and confusion. all kinds of other symptoms. tinnitus, loss of taste and smell, intense light sensitivity, all kinds of neurological, pulmonary, muscular and skeletal problems. millions are out of the workforce because of long covid. what we did in the budget at year end is we put some funds in to supplement -- $1.5 billion we put in a couple years ago to deal with covid research questions, including long covid. we're starting to find promising treatments, even before we fully understand causes. it is still too much a one-off, does your doctor get it or not?

i had a patient forum last friday and heard some heart-wrenching stories about people who are not being believed, even by physicians when they seek help for this. on the health committee in the senate, the health committee, we have to do more to shine a spotlight on this, to make sure people understand we're listening, we believe them and are moving forward on research. the good news is, we are finding some treatments that work. we just have to get more of the information out in people's hands. >> you're right, senator. it's very real. for a people couple years on still dealing with the impacts of their bouts with covid. a couple weeks ago, senator, you still, it appeared, were undecided about whether you'd run for re-election. threw a scare into democrats who want you to hang on to the seat as long as you can. you did decide you will run again. what went into the decision, and what was on the other side of the ledger? why might not you have run again? >> my wife put her finger on it. it was a hard decision ultimately, not a close one. she put her finger on it and

said, you're making an eight-year decision. two years of campaign and six years of a term. most of us, i make a decision of what i'm having for lunch. eight-year decision, think it through. i'll be candid. what i said was, i summarized the pluses and minuses of starting a new chapter in my life when i'm still young and healthy enough to do it, and continuing now 30 years in elected office, from city council to 2024, my re-election. i assigned each position the new chapter and continued bible verse. the new chapter was from ecclesiastes, for everything, there is a time and a purpose under heaven. from galatians, you'll reap a great harvest if you don't give up. then i drove around the state in january and didn't think of my list of pluses and minuses. i thought about the two verses. i found myself kind of getting closer and closer. i think galatians is more in tune with me now than

ecclesiastes. by the end, look, this job has weariness to it, especially with covid and everything else, but we do a lot of good, at least have the capacity to. i have a lot more i want to do. >> that's amazing. democratic senator tim kaine of virginia, thank you very much. be well. we appreciate your coming on the show this morning. >> you bet, guys. so shell has posted its highest ever annual profit. the oil company raked in nearly $40 billion in 2022, surpassing its 2008 record earning of $28 billion. meta also exceeded expectations, despite posting its third straight quarter of declining sales. the company reported a $32 billion revenue yesterday. wall street predicted meta would bring in a little over $31 billion. this is a 4% drop from what the social media giant reported at the end of 2021. meanwhile, amazon will release its fourth quarter results today. analysts predict the e-commerce giant will report its slowest

sales growth in more than two decades. >> steve, amazon seems to be pretty close to a monopoly. i mean, why would amazon be strugging like this? >> i don't know that this is struggling. it is slowing down. but i think two things, joe. first of all, there is a bit more competition, particularly from walmart, against amazon than you might expect. it is like butch cassidy and the sundance kids, who are those guys? but they're coming along. the second thing, though, this is an indication, will be another indication that the economy is in a very funny place. there's a lot of really good things happening. a huge number of new jobs yesterday were posted. but at the same time, we are starting to -- it does feel like the economy is starting to slow down under the pressure of these higher interest rates. consumers are starting to pull back a bit. you see that in a bunch of the other earnings reports. >> steve, i just couple blocks

ago talked about the breaking news from "reuters." the bank of england raised interest rates, not as high as people expected. they believe inflation peaked in britain. we're sort of getting that sense in the united states, as well, from what happened at the fed yesterday. are you more optimistic about a soft landing? >> i think you have to be a bit more optimistic about a soft landing. britain is also having a hard landing. in addition to inflation peaking, the economy is in recession and they are really struggling there on the economic front. the only major economy that's in recession -- going to be in recession this year. yeah, look, the u.s. and part of why the market reacted positively to powell yesterday is that the u.s. appears to be in a sweet spot. inflation is coming down. the economy is still growing. we still, as i said a minute ago, have a record number of jobs available for people to take. and so there's a bit of

optimism, certainly in the markets, that we might actually achieve a soft landing. i think the jury is out to declare victory, but it is better than we might have expected if we talked about this a couple months ago. >> i'm a big believer in capitalism and the free markets. i also, though, see these oil companies. talk about monopolies, near monopolies making record profits. you know, begging for royalty relief it seems, a lot of them paying very little in taxes, income taxes. i mean, what can be done? i know you're like me, you don't want the federal government interfering too much in private companies. but, i mean, come on, oil companies have been treated differently, just like big tech. they've been treated differently for years. why can't congress step in? >> certainly, we can do stuff on the tax side, you're right. they have enjoyed unusually generous tax benefits for years.

they have a powerful lobby in washington and have been able to maintain that. one of the things that we could think about, and there's pluses and minuses, is that the uk did put in a very substantial excess profits tax on the oil companies that produce oil out of the north sea over in the uk, which is within their jurisdiction. we've had excess profits taxes in the past. the oil companies are mostly benefitting from the sheer run-up in oil prices. some of that goes back to ukraine. some of that is simply the fact that we have not been -- the world has not been producing enough oil to meet demand. the oil companies are the happy beneficiaries from their point of view of that. yes, we certainly could do more things on the tax side to keep the profits within a reasonable level. >> steve rattner, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> some companies paid zero in taxes. >> i know. >> then something that, you know, i saw in congress, royalty

relief. >> yeah. >> they want royalty relief when they're making billions and billions of dollars. >> must be nice. >> by the way, this isn't capitalism. this isn't the free market. this is socialism. this is corporate welfare, and it just continues. >> yeah, for them. still ahead on "morning joe," we've learned which democrats will sit on the gop-led weaponization committee. we'll be joined by the new ranking member to discuss democrats' strategy for challenging republicans. plus, congressman george santos facing another investigation. this time, the fbi is getting involved. also this morning, what's next for the tampa bay buccaneers quarterback tom brady? >> poor guy. >> mike trio joins us with his thoughts on that. and beyonce announced she's going on a new world tour. fans are ready. what about ticketmaster? you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. willie, we have breaking news from the nbc news news desk. >> exciting. this is to cool. look how cute he is. >> punxsutawney phil has seen his shadow. there will be six more weeks of winter. >> ah. >> yeah. >> we have a scroll. >> six more weeks. >> so if he sees the shadow, it means more winter, can we confirm that? or less winter? >> that's what we learned today. >> okay. >> i also, this morning, will willie, i think we need to grow beards and we need to be there next

february. >> ew, no beards. >> like bloomberg, we need to go. unlike bloomberg, we're not actually going to be eaten. >> he got attacked. >> viciously attacked by phil. >> yeah. >> i think we -- >> new york mayors, john, have struggled with groundhogs. let's put it that way. >> new york city has their own version of this at the staten island zoo. bloomberg was bitten by a groundhog. a couple years later, de blasio dropped the groundhog that died a few days after that. low mark on his term for sure. >> murdered the groundhog. >> it wasn't murder. it was involuntary manslaughter, accidental. >> we saw it happen. >> there is bloomberg getting bit, ow. >> that's bloomberg. i thought it was the other one. >> very expensive leather gloves on. >> oh! >> oh, dear. >> no, no, no. >> is this de blasio? >> oh, oh. >> no, no, no. >> warning to our viewers.

>> no! >> no, no. >> it's not a cat. it can't fly. >> frazier is down! >> he killed it. >> did he kill it? >> it died. >> mika, i still, i can't believe, though, with all the incredible resources and hospitals in new york city, that they couldn't save this groundhog. >> he was old. >> when the mayor of the big apple slams the groundhog down on the ground, it's going to die. >> no, no. >> it was de blasio's height, he is very tall. >> he is like 7 feet off. it was like going off a cliff. >> falling off a third story balcony. >> he is wearing the heavy duty gloves because he learned from bloomberg, he has the heavy duty gloves. he lost his grip. look what happened here. >> very comfortable with animals. >> that woman was scascared. she squeezed it and suffocated it. well, this is terrible. >> you've had chickens. >> ducks, rabbits, snakes.

>> geese. >> billy goats. >> i've always wanted the little goats. >> yeah, no, you're not going to get them. >> my friend jackie has them. >> have you ever had a groundhog? >> no groundhog. we've done the thing where you put the thing in the ground and you kill them all. it blows up. >> like bill murphy in "caddyshack"? >> second bill murray movie reference today. good job, everybody. >> moles would go through the yard. >> you kill them? >> yeah. >> "caddyshack." >> those were gophers. >> i would use my feet for the burial, i guess. >> this is still the break, right? >> oh, are we back on? >> two more minutes. >> how long until we're on? >> yeah. >> team. >> we're on live. we're live. >> okay. >> count us in, t.j. >> three, two, one. >> welcome back. >> welcome to "morning joe." the house rules committee. >> they held it on tuesday. >> what happened? >> non-binding resolution that

broadly condemn socialism. >> oh, boy, good. >> one republican congressman tried to make a dramatic point in getting democratic congresswoman maxine waters to condemn authoritarian leaders. take a look at how that worked out for him. >> ranking member waters, i would think this would be the most bipartisan bill. the fact this isn't passing on suspension just says everything about my friends across the aisle. that you can't condemn socialism. i mean, in your opening remarks, you were talking about putin, kim jong-un and xi. you know what they have in common, right? >> trump. >> trump? >> north korea, china and russia? >> he loves kim jong-un. >> yes, where has he been for the past six years? >> has he been under -- >> oh, my gosh. >> go, maxine. >> that is slamming the ball in the basket and breaking the

glass. >> throwing the mic down and walking away. >> that was amazing, willie. she is exactly right. i mean, where has this guy been, this member of congress? he talks about a guy that -- what do these people have in common? putin, donald trump says, is brilliant for invading. tals about how strong, that he is a great leader. december 2015 on our show, said he was a strong leader. that he really respected him, even after -- >> put nmsz. >> trump loved him. the dictator in north korea. with president xi, said he was going to be wonderful in covid and is cooperating with us. also were at mar-a-lago together. >> that's right. don't forget the love letters.

>> how did the congressman think that was going to go? was maxine waters going to defend kim jong-un? gave congresswoman waters the big red bat, where you can't miss. >> exactly. all right. beyonce has announced a new concert series. the renaissance world tour is the singer's first solo outing in seven years. now, some fans are raising concerns over whether ticketmaster can handle the demand. nbc news correspondent emilie ikeda reports. ♪♪ >> reporter: that girl, known better to her fans as queen bey, is back and ready to hit the road. beyonce ready to propel to the front of the pack of the grammy nominees, where she is up for record, album and song of the

year. the night's top honors. ♪ won't break my soul you won't break my soul ♪ >> reporter: members of the bey hive hoping they won't have their souls broken ahead of the tour going on sale. >> the renaissance tour happening. >> reporter: renaissance will be ticketmaster's most high-profile test since the botched rollout of taylor swift's eras tour. >> i didn't get tickets to the taylor swift concert. >> reporter: the bad blood among the swifties. many not ready to shake it off after they didn't get tickets. beyonce fans worried about a deja vu. >> tall tyrone, ghostbusters, jesus, fix it out. >> reporter: it led to a hearing with ticketmaster and live nation's vast control of the concert market share. >> livenation doesn't just

dominate the ticketing. it is about 70% of the big concert market. but, also, they own many of the major venues. for the venues that they don't own, they tend to lock in on three, five, seven year agreements. >> reporter: ticketmaster already warning demand for renaissance is expected to be high. anticipation leaving many hoping for a sweet dream over a beautiful nightmare. ♪♪ >> all right. nbc's emilie ikeda with the report. >> i'm concerned. >> what? >> you know what happened with mike and the taylor swift concert. >> he didn't get his tickets. freaking out. >> he wasn't on the show on a week. >> special medication. >> i mean, come on. >> he's a swiftie, has been for a very long time. >> mike, it's you, it's you, you're the problem, it's you. >> what are you talking about?

>> i see what you did. coming up -- >> i was in line for the tickets. they promised those to me. i told people i was going. i get shut out. are you kidding me? you get upset because it upset me. think about me! >> it was a totally different reason why you were shutout, mike. trust me. if everyone else got tickets, you still wouldn't be allowed in. >> shake it off. coming up -- >> alleged $500 million ponzi scheme preyed on mormons. this is an extraordinary story "the washington post" did with the help of las vegas reporters. we'll talk to "the washington post" reporter behind the story and, really, just as incredible, the story of the reporter in las vegas who started this investigation before he was gunned down in the street. >> wow. plus, hunter biden has been the target of republicans for years. now, attorneys for the president's son are going on the offense, calling for an

investigation into donald trump and his allies. that is just ahead on "morning joe." in three seconds, this couple will share a perfect moment. is that? oh wow! but we got to sell our houses! well, almost perfect. don't worry. sell with confidence to opendoor. yes! -done. request a cash offer at opendoor.com (bright music) - [announcer] what if there is a hearing aid that could keep up with you? this is jabra enhance select.

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20 minutes before the top of the hour. a former las vegas lawyer is bracing for more charges one year after fbi agents showed up on his doorstep, accusing him of orchestrating a ponzi scheme that targeted members of the mormon community. there's also the story behind the story. as "the washington post" explains, las vegas investigator was slain outside his home. a clark county official said he had investigated the charge in his death. to continue german's work, "the washington post" teamed up with his newspaper, with the the las

vegas review journal" to complete one of the stories he planned to pursue before his killing. a folder on his desk contained court documents he started to gather about the alleged ponzi scheme that left hundreds of victims, many of them mormon, in its wake. "post" reporter lizzie johnson began investigating, working with "review journal" photographer rachel aston. reporter at "the washington post," lizzie johnson joins us now. wow. >> lizzie, this is an incredible story. i read it yesterday afternoon and thought it was, i don't know, it seemed sort of like a financial version of "breaking bad." i'm sitting here, and i cannot believe what i'm reading. then i get to the end, and i find out that it was jeff german who had started this, collecting the documents. you all teamed up. first of all, talk about this story. talk about this massive ponzi

scheme. >> right. i picked up this story for jeff. i remember flying to las vegas to begin it. he had all these court documents on his desk. as i began to read through them and outlined this crazy story of a $500 million ponzi scheme, more than a dozen marketers helping run it. the two guys allegedly at the top, one was an attorney, the other was a former pharmaceutical salesman who was mormon. they had this lavish lifestyle, bought a private jet, luxury vehicles, multi-million properties in california, utah, nevada. it just blew me away, the ways in which real people's lives were impacted by their money being stolen and where that money went. >> lizzie, this is a classic ponzi scheme story, and the detail in the story is both fascinating, as you just indicated, somewhat sad, because people's lives are broken beyond

belief. but my question that i had during reading it, and perhaps you can answer it, is why the focus on mormons? or was there a focus specifically on mormons? >> there is something typical of an affinity fraud, which is when an investment opportunity like this spreads through a community. because there is a higher level of trust, that scrutiny isn't there, right? you trust the person who you see at church every sunday, who lives in your ward, who you see at the grocery store. you don't expect to be taken advantage of by someone that you trust. it spread quickly through the mormon community for that reason. >> so this story, there's just so much in it, and i don't know if it has been optioned yet, but it should be. gambling debt was at the core of it. one of the perpetrators was badly in debt. as many as what his way of getting out of it.

>> right. so the securities and exchange commission did an extensive forensic accounting of the lifestyles led by the guys who perpetrated this scheme. so that attorney in las vegas who had fallen so deep into debt, he has $6.7 million sent to his bookie. that illustrates the extent of the problem that he had. >> absolutely incredible. >> tell us, you follow the story of a divorced mom, a single mom, who goes from living in this mansion to struggling to pay even her most basic bills. talk about that. talk about her personal life and how she represents so many people in the mormon community who were just absolutely devastated by this ponzi scheme. >> right. so keep in mind that this investment was so appealing to people because it promised annualized returns at 50%. which is unheard of, right?

that's a red flag. but if someone you trust is telling you about it, you don't necessarily think that. so people thinking it was a great deal took out a second mortgage on their home. they invested their entire retirement accounts. this single mom relied on it, so she could stay home with her four kids. when it crashed, she was left with monthly child support, which, you know, didn't pay her monthly rent, and she slowly started occurring debt. she started to get on her feet again. she's a former schoolteacher, has a masters degree but hadn't worked since the birth of her last child 13 years ago. so, you know, she was struggling to find a way to support her family after this. >> wow. enterprise reporter at "the washington post," lizzie johnson, thank you very much. great work. we really appreciate you coming on the show this morning. >> thank you so much. coming up next on "morning joe" -- >> tom brady announced he is retiring for good this time. [ applause ] congratulations. come on.

however, tom, congratulations on an incredible career. since we're off air next week, i'd also like to pretape the following statement. tom brady, welcome back to the nfl for another season of exciting gridiron action. you still got it, baby. >> all right. at least jonathan lemire hopes it's for true. this time, it is for good. mike tirico from nbc sports joins us to talk about what's next for the football legend. "morning joe" is back in a moment. humpty dumpty does it with a great fall. wonderful pistachios. get crackin'

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what if tom brady loses? are we ready -- >> doesn't matter? >> are we ready for that? >> i guess so. what if matt ryan wins? is this a shocker? in this era atlanta might be a little bit unknown to the football public. >> they were a lot unknown. >> i don't know if they were on a monday night this year.

probably one. but this is a team that most people don't know a lot about where we have had the repeat customers. seattle a couple times. new england and denver situations. i'm excited to see them on the big stage. how are the young defensive players, the pass rushing end, are they going to grow in the spotlight or get on the field -- you have been on the field before super bowls. it is different. that's tom brady. i have watched him play six super bowls and i'm the seventh. that's what i want to see. >> call that foreshadowing. mike tirico previewing super bowl li. tom brady and the new england patriots down in the third quarter and pulled off the largest comeback in history.

28-3. defeats the falcons. brady would win another super bowl with the patriot and then the seventh with the tampa bay buccaneers. mike tirico joins us now. great to see you. were you surprised yesterday by tom bray december announcement? there was talk that maybe he finishes out with the bay area team. were you surprised? >> good to see you, buddy. just this much. like you said. san francisco. las vegas. that's appealing. a closing act. what a place to close it out and then openings on the east coast. he wanted to be near his kids on the east coast but then you go the guy is 45. >> yeah. >> he's done this six years

longer than anybody. he's done everything. can he go some place else and do what he did in tampa which is energize a franchise and have the pieces in place to do it? that's a hard ask. i wasn't really surprised to say good-bye. >> so right. he totally changed the way we think about age and football. 45. remember when joe montana playing at the end of the year at 35, 36, 37. people say it's time to go. brady plays almost a decade longer than that. can you put into context this year that he's had and shattered every record and what we thought about the quarterback position, just how great has he been? >> so many -- ten super bowls appeared in. won a seven. you see the list of the

accomplishments there. the one that grabs me the most is that tom brady has won more playoff games than only a handful of franchises. there are only six franchises that won more football playoff games than tom brady. one is new england and he won 25 of the 37 playoff games. at the biggest moments he almost always delivered. i think to go beyond the football for a second there's something mythical about him like michael jordan. to change the narrative, he was the celebrity and had the supermodel wife, comfortable in the camera and he never lost that work ethic. in tampa in late august getting ready for the season and the folks told us that tom brady out there running sprints by himself

in the morning to be in shape for the season. he never even at 45 lost that incredible work ethic and the chip on his shoulder that made him into the best quarterback who's ever played in the nfl. >> if joe would like me to i can recite the fourth quarter of that football gain. >> no, no, no! >> talk about the comeback. this year with a bad tampa team he would have comebacks. that's time and time again. talk to us about how he gave the spirit to the teammates. we can't turn this off. tom brady's playing. >> undying belief that there's a chance to get it done. there's a by-product of doing the work and the time spent with bill belichick. forever people say was it brady or belichick?

who was the reason they won six super bowls? the answer is both. we live where people feel like they have to yell at you every morn jg there's middle ground. without brady belichick is not as good. without belichick brady is not as good. it was the right people at the right place to build a culture. we talk about building a culture. the culture they built and charles woodson can tell you that same thing, too. there's a culture built around the tom brady teams that jj watt and the greatests against him experienced firsthand and that's a differencemaker. he never gave up and that's a hard thing to do for 23 years of

playing at this level in football and set an example to chase for the next generation. >> you see the athletes off the field, interviewing them, and one added reason for tom brady's greatness i would think and maybe you can address it is in the locker room with tampa bay or new england, he was a multimillionaire, a galactic celebrity, the beautiful international model wife, a wonderful family and parents and yet in that locker room he was beloved. among the players because of his work ethic and he was a regular football player. another guy in the locker room. he was tom brady my teammate. could you speak to the importance of that in his

career? >> great point. you left out the movie star good looks and now has a brand of clothing. he did it all and seemed to work. he was this incredibly successful person yet the guys in the locker room connected. most of the people as teammates say he was a great teammate. the guy that willing to talk to. he will joke with a sixth round pick or an undrafted free agent who's part of the team to give that person confidence. he built culture and conferred in the people around him. this is the ultimate team game with 11 people on the team on the field at the same time. ten others and you. you must work in concert. one mistake and the play falls apart. you got 20 guys.

you got to have on the page and he has the whole roster on his page. peyton manning had that brilliance. the ability to deal with the personalities. >> joe montana said it's john candy. he's not nervous. we're not nervous. you have buy-in from everybody. you follow him and breaks hearts of atlanta falcons fans like myself. i just want for people who don't know a lot about the nfl, let's talk about what a unicorn he was as far as age goes. initial in the '70s my dad loved the raiders and saw a 43-year-old john blandis stumble on the team.

looked 65. it was shocking that a guy that age goes out there. you look at brady now and he's in great shape still. he could have really helped the niners, the raiders this next year. just talk about again how extraordinary it is that he was still playing and could have played next year. >> that image is one to stick in the mind with an old guy with a little bit of a gut going out in the '70s to play. and smoking a cigarette in the super bowl. >> fantastic. >> right? it is a very different world. we have all evolved in so many ways. brady threw the most passes in the nfl this year. 25 touchdown passes which i believe is seventh or eighth in the league.

he had it. the team was not as good. he had a lot going on in his world yet the team found a way to get to the playoffs. did they play well against dallas? no. there were limitations on the team. you don't say it's because brady doesn't have it anymore. we are in an era in football where the fb position almost requires mobility. that's the one thing tom never had. right? barry sanders put out a great tweet yesterday to list the tom brady career rushing yards. he wasn't a runner. he was the definition of the quarterback position from a generation before and pretty special and great to watch him get the team to the playoffs. >> in case you think mike is kidding, at super bowl i smoked

a cigarette and drinking an fresca. >> oh. >> a week from sunday, chiefs-eagles. two best teams probably in football over the season. what do you see here in this matchup? a couple of great quarterbacks, great defenses. what do you like and what make it is difference in the game? >> i love philadelphia is back in the game after winning the super bowl and they have some characters and foundational guys but a new head coach and quarterback. it will be exciting to see hurts on the big stage. kansas city has a chance to become a team that didn't just win a super bowl but the best team of an era. talking about making another super bowl three and four years.

the star quarterback in patrick mahomes and take away tyreek hill and travis kelce has a great year. i think we have a great one, a close one on the hands. i haven't thought about who i would pick. at the end of the day that experience of kansas city might be a differencemaker. it is nice to see a year wrap up in a hopefully great super bowl. >> should be. the line is 1 1/2 for the eagles which shows you how close it is. mike tirico, we could talk to you for all four hours. thank you so much. great to see you. >> i want to debt ceiling and all that but okay. >> stick around. >> no, no! >> we have two hours for you.

>> he is out. see ya. >> we are into the third hour of "morning joe." donald trump's estranged former lawyer michael cohen said prosecutors took his cell phones to preserve evidence on a hush money payment he made to an adult film star during the 2016 presidential campaign. cohen said manhattan district attorney office asked for the phones because it wants to extract voice recordings of conversations with a lawyer for daniels as well as emails and text exchanges. cohen told the associated press that he was questioned by prosecutors for two and a half hours and expects to testify in front of a grand jury. it might come back to stormy

daniels. attorneys for hunter biden is seeking a probe. according to letters obtained by nbc news. biden's lawyers asked the justice department to investigate rudy giuliani and others who they say trafficked from the laptop. giuliani is said to have passed on a copy of the hard drive to post. the letters to investigators asked for an investigation into john paul mack isaac. hunter biden attorney told nbc news on wednesday night these letters do not confirm the so-called laptop. they address the conduct of seeking, manipulating and disseminating what they allege

to be his personal data wherever they claim to have gotten it. similar letter also sent to the delaware attorney general's office asking for a probe. raising concerns now after so many years indicates how devastating the text and videos from the laptop truly are. the requests come as biden faces his own tax evasion investigation by the justice department and shows a dramatic shift in strategy for the president's son after years of republican attacks. let's bring in the co-founder of punch bowl news. john, what do you make of the move by hunter at this time? >> yeah. it is interesting to see abby lowell, an excellent lawyer, go on the offensive here.

trying to get in front of the house republicans, house oversight and accountability chairman jim comer wants to start on hearings next week. they want to get in on this issue. the lawyers are trying to get out in front of it saying, look, this is trying to challenge the validity once again of how this got out in the public and question how that it ended up in reporters' hands and what was done with it. >> what do you think about the committee wars going on? you look at the intel committee and kevin mccarthy kicking a couple of members off. what goes around comes around. doesn't set up well. ilhan omar kicked off the foreign affairs committee after

republicans making quite a few anti-semitic remarks themselves. >> the house will vote on omar today. house republicans will push through a resolution stripping her from foreign affairs and this is something that speaker kevin mccarthy is adamant about. he is lobbying members personally undecided. talked to ken buck from colorado. switched the votes. they were on the fence. he's doing this himself. this is what he warned about when democrats kicked marjorie taylor greene and paul gosart off the committees. following through with the threat. at the time steny hoyer warned

the democrats like if the republicans take the house that will happen. this is -- joe, you know this. once precedent is set the other side finds a way to up the ante and keep seeing this. you know? schiff and kevin mccarthy have a terrible relationship. mccarthy tried to get him censured in 2019 over the trump investigation. this is not the way things should be run. but you know? both sides have done it. what's the next level of partisanship to find? >> yeah. fascinating fight that you've written about has to do with immigration, especially among republicans in the senate. john cornyn's come out and he's trying to explain to fellow republicans there, listen, we don't want a repeat of what

happened in 2013. but he is actually going up against john thune, senator barasso. is this a proxy fight for when mitch mcconnell leaves? >> yeah. i call them the three johns and they all hate it. they tell me they want to answer any questions about the three johns. this is a proxy fight for mcconnell and it won't be tomorrow or soon but it will be some point. nancy pelosi left. mcconnell will leave. it is what's going on inside the party. this is -- the republicans are beating up biden over this issue and rightly so. they've done terrible messaging on the border. we may see the homeland security secretary impeached over this.

can the republicans come up with a solution? they could fund border security bill but can they address dreamers or asylum? it's only going to get more toxic as the republican presidential nomination fight goes forward. this is a really tough issue. it is a crisis. the republicans talk about it as a crisis but if it is can you offer solutions? cornyn on one side and the conservatives on the other. it is the problem that the republican party faced a decade on this issue. >> it is a humanitarian crisis. reminds me of we talked about obamacare earlier today. republicans never really presented their own plan and a national alternative plan. same thing with immigration.

>> yep. >> where you have people like nancy mason in the house saying the republicans that think they're going to pass a border security only bill without talking about dreamers and the other problems and the high-tech challenges, having immigrants coming in -- >> without really talking about it. >> it has to be a comprehensive bill. kevin mccarthy doesn't even have the votes in the house to pass a border security only bill because of course that won't take care of the problem. you need tough border security and a comprehensive bill. >> they don't have it but make a lot of noise. >> it is all gesturing until there's a comprehensive plan. cornyn is trying to do that. we'll see what they do. >> democratic house leader jeffries announced the slate of

members to serve on the subcommittee investigating the so-called weaponization of the federal government. axios said it will be a highly vehicle for the mr. ins to investigate the justice department and the fbi after a series of investigations that implicated republicans. leader jeffries selected dan goldman of new york. democratic congress members gerry connolly and stephen lynch selected. democratic delegate stacey plaskett named ranking member and joins us now. so good to see you. thank you so much for joining us. tell us what -- how you plan to counter the balance on this committee, especially given the

different ways to go with weaponization of the federal government. >> sure. it is great to be here. i'm so honored the leader chosen of the democratic caucus members to fill the ranks of what i call the truth squad going up against the republicans on this as they call it weaponization of the federal government. we are calling it the committee on insurrection protection. i think that we have a fantabulous team to do it under ranking member nadler from the judiciary committee. >> great to see you again. >> good to see you. >> jim jordan is heading the committee for republicans. he's made no secret that he believes that federal government was used to undermine the trump

presidency and so on. he is playing to the cameras. he is doing it the whole career. how can you balance that with trying to project the business of the people amid the sideshows? >> sure. we have made it clear that we are willing to work across the aisle with republicans to solve the kitchen table issues that americans are concerned with and republicans have shown they are more interested in performative politics. we will be a stop gap and speaking the truth on the committee. they're looking for conspiracies for problems with no solutions to those problems. there are areas to be invest gaited. we have seen the fbi agent indicted for giving secrets to the republicans and the work of

attorney general barr in doing things to try to support donald trump. which might have thwarted the constitution and the justice department's mandate. so those are things that, yes, let's look into those. but the fact that the fbi director stated the greatest threat to the united states is homegrown terrorism and white supremacy and that causes the republicans to clutch their pearls is something that we all see through that and going to try to bring the truth to the table. >> delegate plasgett, there are abuses in the federal government with grounds to be investigated. do you anticipate that -- is there anything that's cross cutting and of bipartisan interest? am i just being too

pollyanna-ish that there could be reforms from this? >> you know, you're an optimist. some people are pessimists. i'm a realist. we haven't seen from the republicans they are interested in that. listen. the irs report, recently you in the media reported that the irs audits african americans a higher rate than they do other americans. if we want to look into the irs and the weaponization let's do it on that front. we offer areas that are important to look at. we'll see where we come out. but just know that the democrats there are there to do the work and there to call out nonsense and conspiracy theories and fearmongering the republicans seem to be so good at.

>> delegate, thank you so much for being here this morning. >> thank you. as we have been talking here, a bit of news from the california senate race, now nancy pelosi this morning has said this. if senator feinstein seeks re-election she has my support. if not i will be supporting adam schiff who knows well the nexus between a strong democracy and a strong economy. with porter in the race, barbara lee expected to get into the race, nancy pelosi is coming out already in support of senator schiff if feinstein doesn't return. surprised at all? >> yes and no. she is not speaker anymore and can weigh in. she loves adam schiff. she appointed him in the middle

to take charge of the first impeachment of former president trump. that's kind of a respect she had. intelligence chairman committee. not judiciary chairman. she named him to intelligence. he spent a long time there. it doesn't surprise me. they had a close relationship. two northern californians. so this doesn't shock me. it does that she is getting out there this early. katie porter in the race. barbara lee may get in it. this is really interesting to me especially in terms of donors and lining up behind schiff. this is an interesting development early on. >> all right. john, thank you so much for being with us this morning. president biden met with house speaker kevin mccarthy for more than an hour to try to find

a path forward on the debt ceiling. mccarthy called it a good first meeting but expectations are low considering republicans have yet to explain what cuts could be on the table. joining us now is director of office of management and budget is shandala young. first of all, what is the potential that a deal can be reached any time soon? is yesterday a good start? >> of course. this town is all about relationships. this is a beginning of a process of a marathon. i worked on the other side of pennsylvania in my career and we will find a path. the last guest, i'm in the optimistic camp because we have to get it done. >> so we saw what happened

yesterday with the fed. how does that impact the budget? >> so the fed has its tools and they're using them. this administration has used all the tools at our disposal to bring down costs to the american people. the president got done the inflation reduction act. so absolutely our budget will continue to put forward policies that bring down costs but the last few inflation reports are heartening. inflation is moderating. there could be bumps in the road but we are on the right path. why do we attempt to do anything to take away the progress on the road to bringing down costs or anything to impede the strong labor market? >> director young, there is a

lot of talk about the debt ceiling. people in washington talk about it every hour. most americans i think listen but seem vague about the debt ceiling. what it means and what doesn't it mean? my question to you is, is there a drop dead date on the debt ceiling that once we get to that date or past the date that things really fall apart? >> so you've been doing this a long time. i don't have to tell you but this is in extraordinary measures. secretary yellen has extended how long before we breach the debt ceiling so we have some time. that time is not certain. we should not get close to a deadline that we are using extraordinary measures to extend already. we saw back in 2011 even the

flirting with or close to reduced the credit rating of this country and concerned with having the dead ceiling held hostage to a separate conversation we are willing to have about spending and deficit reduction. this president takes a backseat to nobody on deficit reduction. the budget will continue the trajectory on reduction. there's a time and a place. i'll send up a budget with every value of the president in the budget on march 9th and the president looks forward to seeing the same from republicans. >> maybe they can produce something. director young, thank you so much and as this progresses we hope to speak to you again soon. thank you. >> absolutely. thank you so much. still ahead on "morning joe," nikki hailey set a launch a presidential bid this month.

what donald trump is saying about that and what it means for his own white house run. and coming up in our fourth hour, lawrence o'donnell with a look at the exclusive interview with outgoing chief of staff ron klain. you are watching "morning joe." (laughs) they're gonna need more space... yep...the house... we gotta sell it! we gotta stage it. excuse me. fix it up. they don't pre-rinse. strangers touching everything. or, skip the hassles and sell with confidence to opendoor. close in a matter of days. oh, wow. when life's doors open, we'll handle the house. request a cash offer at opendoor.com

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former south carolina governor nikki hailey is inviting supporters to a seshl announcement in charleston. the republican's expected to announce the 2024 bid for the white house making her the second major candidate in the race following donald trump. former president trump responded to the news posting this 2021 video on his social media page. >> hi still has a lot of popularity. if he runs again in 2024 will you support him?

>> yes. >> if he decides that he is going to run would that preclude any sort of run that you would possibly make yourself? >> i would not run if president trump ran. >> okay. trump posted that video with the caption that says that nikki has to follow her heart, not her honor. bigger story is she totally changed her mind and doesn't think that he's an issue. >> can anybody really do anything to stop donald trump? if donald trump decides to run. >> he is running. >> he's saying he is running but you never know with him. might be trying to make money and avoid indictments. >> profession. a lot of legal cases against him. >> is there anyone who can still take the guy down? he is the champ inside the republican party. >> yeah. look. i think he saw this at the end of the 2016 primarys.

people trying to play donald trump better than donald trump. nobody's better at being donald trump than donald trump. trump might benefit from a large republican field that does get in. poking nikki hailey for getting in and i think happy to have her in. looking to the 2016 primaries winner takes all. donald trump got all of the delegates. you can imagine if there's a trump lane and not trump lane and several candidates splitting up the not trump lane and trump gets what he will get he will rack up a lot of delegates and be in the process for a long time. >> so nikki haley did for a minute step out and criticize

donald trump about a month after january 6 saying this. we need to acknowledge he let us down. he went down a path we shouldn't have listened to him. we can't let that happen again and then see her say i wouldn't run against him. they need to decide how they walk that line of being critical of donald trump but also keeping the voters around. >> dealing with january 6 because that is an issue that divides republican voters. you have the lowest 30% of voters that stick with donald trump. what gibbs is saying is he benefits so much from a crowded republican field and right now it wlooks like we see the mistake of the 2016 republican primary happen again and candidates get in and nikki

haley coming in. mike pompeo looks like he is proceeding ahead with a run. what about tim scott and mike pence? what about ted cruz? i heard from an adviser to him he is considering it and not sure of the lane. what is her lane in that primary? >> so many other are talking about running. this is starting to take on the faint outlines of 2016 with washington republicans trying to be trumpists that are being critical at the edges of donald trump. yet you look at polls right now of republican primary voters. they are beyond extreme. the majority of them are beyond extreme. the majority of them believe that the election was stolen and

have crazy views about trump's own vaccine. the majority are far outside the mainstream of american politics. they will still be with donald trump. i really think we are getting this divide again of 2016 where the base was all in for trump while some washington republicans trying to be rational and straddle that line. there's no straddling it. >> on groundhog day it is a re-run of 2016. the difference is i think trump knew where the base was in 2016 better than the establishment ever could on immigration and trade. that's the wall. that's where he struck a cord with them. the base has only moved with him.

it is more radical and extreme moving more to the right where trump took them. it is hard for a quote mainstream republican to find another lane place to beat him. that's the candidate to look toward. what's the constituency? >> the flavor of the month is desantis. we will see where that goes but what he is trying to do is take on trump from the right including on pandemic response and culture wars. so he is making the bet to take on trump on trumpism but seeing others do that they lost badly. coming up -- >> when i think about the courage and the strength of this family i think it demands that we speak truth.

with this i will say this violent act was not in pursuit of public safety. >> that's right. >> it was not in the interest of keeping the pull safe because one must ask was not it in the interest of keeping the public safe that tyre nichols would be with us here today? >> that is vice president kamala harris yesterday at the funeral for tyre nichols. al sharpton delivered the eulogy and joins us next on "morning joe." hey, man. nice pace! clearly, you're a safe driver. you could save hundreds for safe driving with liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance... ...so you only pay for what you need! [squawks] whoo! we gotta go again.

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we are going on to something else. some of us do this every day. some of us believe in the dream has to come true. some of us are going to fight until we make this legislation happen. i don't know when. i don't know how. but we won't stop until we hold you accountable and change this system. >> that is part of reverend al sharpton's eulogy for tyre nichols yesterday. following an emotional service, it is almost a month. he died three days later. his mother said her faith is only thing keeping her going after the death of youngest child. >> tyre was a beautiful person. and for this to happen to him is just unimaginable.

i probably should say the only thing that i keep going because i believe my son was sent her on an assignment from god. [ applause ] >> yes, ma'am. >> and i guess now his assignment is done. and he's been taken home. >> an assignment from god. the passionate eulogy touched on the final moments and the struggle, the ongoing struggle for civil rights. >> home is where you are at peace. home is where you don't have to keep your dukes up. home is where you're not vulnerable and everything is all right. he said all you want to do is get home. i come to memphis to say the

reason i keep going is all i'm trying to do is get home. i want to get where they can't treat me with a double standard. we're asking to be treated equal. and to be treated fair. and just like they marched and boycotted and went to jail for nine years from the '55 montgomery busboy cot to the '64 civil rights act, we going to pay the same dues to get this george floyd justice and policing act. >> reverend al joins us now. you have to do too many of these. through the morning there's a sense of purpose and mission in that service including from tyre

mick comes' mother saying my son was on assignment from god. >> she was remarkable. no one gave her those lines. this was from her heart. she really believe that is he was on assignment from god. i don't care how much support you get for a mother and stepfather to bury a child. she brought the human side as well as vice president harris joins us saying we have got to pass the legislation. we keep going to the funerals. we wait on the next one and rally and wait on the next one. it is time for the congress to stop this and really up the ante legally to say to police you

will be held accountable. coming up, a next guest apointed as the top democrat on the intelligence committee after house speaker kevin mccarthy blocked congressman schiff from joining the panel. congressman jim himes joins the conversation straight ahead on "morning joe." migraine hits hard, so u hit back with ubrelvy u level up u won't take a time-out one dose of ubrelvy works fast it can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within 2 hours without worrying if it's too late or where you are unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks a protein believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. migraine pain relief starts with u learn how abbvie could help you save. ask about ubrelvy, the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. ♪ ...i'm over 45. ♪ a♪ i realize i'my, no spring chicken. ♪ ♪ i know what's right for me. ♪ ♪ i've got a plan to which i'm sticking. ♪

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last year the term quiet quitting took the internet and many work conversations by storm. it describes the act of doing the minimum requirements of a job and declining to go above and beyond why there's no doubt that quiet quitting has changed the way we think and talk about work. our next guests believe the term isn't going away any time soon and there are new career trends

emerging. joining us is maggie mcgrath and huma abadeen. maggie, "forbes" has written about this. quiet quitting. now there's quiet hiring? what is it and is it a response to quiet quitting? >> it could basically be quiet hiring is the process which emp are looking to fill empty roles either shift existing employees into those new open roles or they get their best and brightest employees extra responsibilities. i spoke to an organizational psychologist who said people can thrive when given new opportunities. however, if they're given these

extra responsibilities and not a commensurate increase in pay, they could feel undervalued, yushd appreciated. so proceed with caution. it's a trendy term that i think some recruiting consultants came up with. it describes something that's been happening since the dawn of the century, making a plan b while you're in a plan a. beefing up your resume, learning new skills, maybe taking on a side gig that has full-time potential. the forbes news team has been covering the layoffs we've been seeing in the corporate sector. we've seen 60,000 jobs lost

alone. >> this is a whole new world we're living in. we're going to be talking a lot more about the future of work at the upcoming 30/50 summit in abu dhabi. we'll be hearing from icons including gloria stein ham, malala and many more. tell us about the vibrant capital of the uae. >> the goal of this conference was to celebrate international women's day in a truly global way. the idea of bringing together women from different generations, different perspectives, different backgrounds coming together, sharing lessons learned, sharing ideas and really coalescing around issues that are universal, innovation, progress,

empowerment, mentorship. we're going to do all of those things. doing it in abu dhabi felt like the exact right place because the city really does feel like a cross roads between the east and west. the emirates has shown real leadership in making progress towards gender equality. the emirates has the highest percentage of women participating in the economy compared to the rest of the region. a georgetown study showed that 98.5% of emirati women felt safe and secure in their communities. that's the highest percentage world wide. they were the last country to introduce paid parental leave to all employees in the private sector. it's a beautiful city with lots of cultural landmarks. we're so looking forward to be

back there again this year. it's such a wonderful experience of coming together, of ideas, of cultures, community and inspiration. >> i can't wait to see maggie on a camel. we have a little more information as we're all producing this together about the agenda. >> i'm terrified of camels, actually, so we'll have to work on that. we were getting so many questions from attendees about what's on the agenda. go to the forbes 30/50 website to see details. we have a conversation about building a billion dollar company. we have a really important conversation about breaking wealth and pay gaps to fuel longevity. we know women make less money, earn less money, but live longer than their male counterparts. how do we find solutions for pushing forward on that?

we're also going to talk about how war and poverty are sexist and how that affects women disproportionately to men. on march 9th we'll be revealing details about our teach and learn where every participate is a speaker. head to forbes 30/50 website to see exactly what's on the agenda. >> thank you, huma abedin, maggie mcgrath. for more details, head over to forbes.com or know your value dotcom. next, what is driving the day on wall street. plus, nbc's stephanie ruhle joins the conversation. s stepha joins the conversation

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. what lesson did you learn from this? and will you change your approach at all? >> first, i don't own this job. anybody who wants to run for it can feel free to do so. so i'm not in any way offended by an opponent or having a few votes in opposition. >> that was senate minority leader mitch mcconnell moments after he received a challenge to his leadership position by florida senator rick scott. >> no hard feelings. >> he said there were no hard

feelings. we'll explain how mcconnell got a little payback there. >> what's trump call him, the old crow or something like that? >> we'll also be joined by the new top democrat on the house intelligence committee who's calling for more information about the classified records found in the private possession of president biden and former president trump. also one day after the fed made its move, the bank of england this morning raised interest rates and now sees a much shallower recession than initially feared. andrew ross sorkin and stephanie ruhle will join us. later this hour we'll be joined by the stars of the new musical and juliet, that's combining shakespeare with pop music. welcome back. it is the top of the fourth hour of "morning joe."

6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. willie, are you awake? >>ish, yeah. >> six more weeks of winter, willie. you and i learned that when a groundhog sees its shadow, that means six more weeks. we also have gone through the sordid history of new york city mayors and groundhogs. >> and they hurt the groundhogs. >> it's been a strained relationship, to put it mildly. mayor bloomberg had some trouble with one and tragically mayor de blasio had a problem. >> it died three days later. also elise and i want to talk about the monkeys. >> the dallas zoo monkeys. >> the dallas zoo. the monkeys in the closet.

>> they found them yesterday, it was great. >> in a closet. >> weren't there some louisiana monkeys too? >> yes. >> what's happening here? >> i don't know. that's why i really want to cover it. >> is this a plot out of fight club 2? where is this leading? i don't know, willie. >> monkey brawls. >> there were cameras all over zoos and then monkeys disappear and get found in a closet. >> we're going to sort that out here. for the next few moments, why don't you tell us what happened yesterday when the president of the united states met with the speaker of the house to try to save the economy. >> for now, president biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy met yesterday for more than an hour to try to find a path forward on the debt ceiling. no deal reached, but the two leaders called the meeting productive, frank and straightforward.

the two coveed a range of issues and president biden is eager to work across the aisle in good faith. the white house also stressed it is the shared duty of the president and speaker mccarthy not to allow an unprecedented and economically catastrophic default. >> we both have different perspectives on this, but i thought this was a good meeting. we promised we would continue the conversation and we'll see if we can get there. i think we can find common ground. i told the president i would like to see if we can come to an agreement long before the deadline. i think this is a positive. this is exactly how government in america is designed, that you have to find compromise. >> we're not going to pass a clean debt ceiling. >> you told him that directly?

>> yeah. he told me the perspectives he wanted. >> they had a good discussion about the ability to try to talk about what we can do to improve our nation's fiscal posture to lower the deficit, lower the debt without destroying the economy, without hurting the strong economic growth we've produced. the president made it clear he intends to put on the table on march 9th a detailed plan to lower the deficit by a trillion dollars without cuts in programs like social security and medicare, without diminishing economic growth, without raising taxes on people who make less than $400,000 a year, by making sure the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share of taxes. he challenged speaker mccarthy to come up with his plan to lower the deficit, help with our debt problem without damaging

our economy and without hurting people who shouldn't be hurt. the debt ceiling is not a thing you can negotiate. it is a constitutional obligation of the congress that for over 200 years both democrats and republicans have honored. we're going to put out a specific plan that shows the path forward to cut the deficit by another trillion dollars. the real issue is, do the republicans have a plan? what is that plan? some republicans say they're going to cut social security and medicare. some say they aren't. what will they cut? look, we've heard some republicans talk about some ghastly cuts on disabled veterans, on food stamps for children, on repealing obamacare again. that's part of some people's plans. once again, we're going to go back up that hill of repealing obamacare. we can cut the deficit without any of that cruelty by simply asking billionaires to pay the

same tax rate teachers and firefighters do. it would raise $500 billion toward deficit reduction or critical investment. we'll talk. we'll see where we disagree. are there grounds for compromise, can we get some things done. >> lawrence joins us now along with symone sanders townsend. she previously served as advisor for vice president kamala harris. also with us, jonathan lemire. >> lawrence, i was on cnbc a few minutes ago. andrew ross sorkin asked if after this meeting and the meetings coming up is this still going to be something that's solved at like 3 minutes to

midnight. i think it's going to be solved more like at midnight, maybe 30 seconds after midnight. what's your insight on the body language? how does this end? >> well, you know, kevin mccarthy's body language with me yesterday in the hallway was excellent. it was flawless. i was actually the last hand that he shook on the way out of the west wing. i was being rushed down the hallway to go see ron klain. he was racing down the door to talk to the microphones. what he said in the driveway was interesting, because it was from the classic comment in the house driveway before things get difficult. it was we had a good meeting, it was a very good first meeting. then things got a little more difficult even later the same afternoon when back up at the house he's saying, well, no, there absolutely has to be a negotiation on this, which

president biden has said there will not be. this is the one, joe, where i'm really going to cover this one all the way as a crisis. the last few i kind of ignored, because i knew it's going to be histrionic and a minute to midnight it's going to work out. this one, i don't know. it's because the collective intelligence level of the republican house of representatives has dropped below a line that we can measure. so there are people there who have no idea what the debt ceiling is, why it exists, how long it has existed, how long the country lived without a debt ceiling without any problem at all. so there are people who are prepared to crash into it and eager, i think, to see, okay, let's see what really does happen, is all this exaggerated crisis talk? let's see it, let's feel the crisis. they ridiculously think, well,

there's still a few days of it and if it's really bad, we can just kind of pass a debt ceiling. whatever happens will be somewhere around midnight and i don't know what's going to happen. >> yes, the collective intelligence may have dropped substantially. >> how can they put together a budget? >> also the size of the majority has dropped. there are a good number of republicans in districts that went for joe biden that aren't going to want the economy to crash and burn because of some idiots that went with 80% of the vote in their gerrymandered districts every two years. also, you know this because you've been there, there are also going to be a hell of a lot of contributors, people that run pacs that send them money every two years that are going to be saying, hey, you know, get in there and end this crisis. i wonder how that works to

perhaps stop the crisis from happening. >> well, that's where, unfortunately, as far as we know now, kevin mccarthy is the most important player here, because it is completely up to him when you bring a debt ceiling bill to the house floor, only he can do that. when you read the house rules about if the democrats want to bring a debt ceiling bill to the house floor, the only way they can do it apparently is a discharge petition. if you sit down and read the rules of discharge petition, it's like reading something vladimir putin would have written for his legislature, for the opponents in the legislature, how do they get to bring something to a vote. so getting the debt ceiling to a vote through a discharge petition seems extremely unlikely.

it's technically possible. the easy way is kevin mccarthy says let's have a vote. it would pass because you'd get all the democrats and probably 20 republicans at least. is kevin mccarthy ever going to ask for that vote? >> this debate over the debt ceiling, this negotiation between the white house and speaker mccarthy may be a preview of the next two years wruf a speaker who is beholden to a small group of republicans to whom he pledged, whatever you need i'll give to you to become speaker of the house. how do do you work with a group like that? >> i think the white house has clearly identified what their line is. when young people are like how do we do it, you've got to find a personal and professional line. the white house has found their line. they're not going to negotiate

on entitlements. it sounds awkward to call it that, because we literally pay into social security. i think they have the upper hand. it is congress, particularly speaker mccarthy, who looks weak. the american people want congress to do their jobs. they want their elected officials to work for them. it is not popular what is happening as it relates the economy. there is all this talk in the leadup to the midterm elections about will democrats do well. i can't imagine how speaker mccarthy and top republicans in congress think that fighting, fiddling with the full faith and credit of the united states government, potentially taking us over the cliff is a way to build support with folks across the country. >> the white house feels like

we've got the upper hand. kevin mccarthy may be beholden to a group of extremists. that's your problem, not ours. >> we saw in 2011 when president obama was in office, we got close to midnight. a deal was struck. after that, it was taken care of. there wasn't this drama that went along with it. that's not the case this time. the white house is keenly aware that kevin mccarthy is dealing with members of his own caucus, including hard liners who say we're not going to lift the ceiling. they also know that mccarthy's grip on the speakership post is pretty tenuous. at any point, a single member can call for a vote to have him removed. they feel like the moment right now politically is with them, that they feel like the republicans have themselves in

a bind. >> one point to what lawrence said about the intelligence, if you will, you've heard a lot of conservatives that are extremely conservative, right wing, the never kevins in congress talk about shutting down the government. that is not what happens if congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. if the debt ceiling isn't raised, the markets go into a tizzy. government does not shut down. it affects people across the country and around the world. >> lawrence, it's a great point. let's just talk about it again, how hypocritical my former party is when they care about deficits. george w. bush is president, republicans stop talking about deficits. they don't care about deficits.

george bush blows a hole in the federal debt, sets records, right? then barack obama is president. suddenly the tea party cares about deficits. then donald trump becomes president and we have them running around saying deficits don't matter. trump raises the debt more in four years than presidents did over the first 220 years. just talk about how outrageous and how transparently hypocritical these republicans are who don't give a damn about spending or deficits until the democrats are in the white house. >> republicans have made this work flawlessly for them in a cyclical nature where they get into giant tax cuts, and the tax cuts are the first things that always create the deficit in a republican administration. they cut these taxes to the bone

and the deficit runs up. then at some point you elect a democratic president. when you elect a democratic president, the first thing the democratic president has to do, bill clinton, barack obama, joe biden, the first thing they have to look at is raising taxes, which works perfectly for the republicans, because then they get to run against the guy for raising taxes. so what you have if you pull back at it, what you can see in that cycle is, the republicans know they get to do this and they get to be as reckless as they want to in fiscal policy for as long as they want to when they're in the white house because they know there is another party that is going to come to power again at some point and that other party is the responsibility party. the democrats will take responsibility for what has been left in fiscal policy by republicans. i've always been wondering will there come a time when democrats simply break out of their kind of grip of being responsible and

simply come along and behave like the republicans on this. we haven't seen that happen yet, but that would be the long-term party for decades, now it's your turn. >> you asked ron klain about yesterday's consensual search of the president's home, no warrant needed by the fbi. let's take a listen to that. >> ron, obviously the news of the day is another document search, this time the president's beach house. the fbi and apparently the biden lawyers say nothing was found this time. when did the fbi request the search that was conducted today? >> the president has been very clear. he's been working through his lawyers with the fbi to make all of his residences available. they were able to search through every single inch and room and drawer of his home in

wilmington. they requested the opportunity to search his beach house. they've done that. as you said, no documents with classified markings were found in that house. the hallmark of our handling of this has been transparency with the justice department. the president and his legal team said, hey, we found some of these documents. we've been cooperating fully. former president trump has stonewalled the government, was asked for these documents, refused to turn them over. in our case, we identified the documents and turned them over as soon as we found them. >> there is a new bipartisan push to obtain more information about the contents of the records recovered from president biden's home. joining us now, one of the house

democrats leading those calls, congressman jim hines of connecticut. idea he was na yesterday he was named the ranking member of the house intelligence committee. there needs to be a new way how documents are handled in the first place. >> that's right, mika. i can't get over the amount of time, energy and effort that has been spent on a pretty simple proposition. no fact in washington cannot be used to indicate the fundamental virtue of the ex-president or the sins of the current president. this is really simple. classified documents should not be out of classified spaces. it doesn't matter whether they were under a corvette in wilmington or under a beer cooler in mar-a-lago. documents need to stay in classified spaces. number two, if you cooperate you won't have angry fbi agents showing up at your door. if you ignore a subpoena or lie

to the department of justice, you will. this is not a huge problem to solve. we need 30-year-old dni or cia people to look at the 20 or 30 boxes that leave the white house or the naval observatory to make sure there isn't classified information, full stop. >> what can congress do about this? is there some legislation that can be passed? also, beyond safeguarding classified material, but also looking at the problem of overclassification, that entirely too much is classified, including, say, a president's daily schedule. on that day you want to keep it secret because you don't want to advertise where he's going. but once that trip has passed, a few years later it doesn't really matter. >> i think over classification is a problem. by the way, we should look at that. it creates a huge burden on lots of people to not disclose

information which you can probably read on the front page of the "new york times." it's a separate problem. i don't think we need a blue ribbon commission on how to keep classified information in the white house. we need a 30-year-old with a top secret security clearance to look at a bunch of boxes. when i get classified information, i go to a skiff in the basement of the capitol. the white house and the naval observatory, these are secure places where the president or the vice president can take documents to a study or the living room. this is not that hard a problem to solve, but it needs to be solved. even if information is slightly classi classified, it's classified for a reason in all likelihood. >> you were named ranking member of the house intel committee yesterday. adam schiff was blocked by

speaker mccarthy from taking that seat. what's your reaction to that decision and the way speaker mccarthy and republicans have been moving to keep certain democrats off of committees? >> it's pretty simple what happened. we all watched the period in which kevin mccarthy had to go through 15 votes to become speak of the house. one of the things he had to do was to unfairly remove adam schiff and eric swalwell from the intelligence committee. he said he was going to do it and if he hadn't done it, he wouldn't be speaker. it disappoints me because i worked very closely with both of them and i understand republicans are angry they were leaders in investigating president trump's call to ukraine where he said you don't get military aid unless you give me dirt on the bidens.

i understand they're angry about that, but to remove 20 years of experience from a critical role, that shouldn't have been on the list of demands from the folks who were voting on kevin mccarthy for speaker. >> congressman jim himes of connecticut, thank you. you were listening to the congressman there. what is your reaction to the way not only this has played out yesterday. the biden white house has cooperated, there was no warrant issued. has the white house handled it well? >> first, in terms of how the white house has handled it, i think they have done a very good job at trying to keep the information flowing, but also not jeopardize themselves with the department of justice.

i do think there is an argument they should have been proactive and not waited for someone else to break the news. i think this is a situation where they were damned if they do, damned if they don't. so the outcome would have been the same. in terms of democrats, i'm very shocked to continue to hear democrats do the line posturing, if you will, oh well, all of the classified documents are important. let's be clear. donald trump took documents from the white house. when he found out he had them, he said there were his and he wasn't going to give them back. the fbi had to go and get them. joe biden's staff were closing up an office and they found these documents and called the national archives. i need people to understand this is not the same thing. i was shocked to hear congressman himes say he doesn't

think there needs to be legislation. there needs to be protocol. there's a difference between rules, things that are codified in legislation that is a rule. there's not a rule in terms of how a president or vice president packs up. if he wants this 30-year-old from the whatever with their top secret clearance to make sure they get a look at the documents, congress needs to write a rule like they do everything else. >> it's a point we've been making for many weeks. there is no equivalency in these two stories, which is the volume of documents, first of all. second of all, the obstruction that took place from donald trump and his allies. a republican senator who unsuccessfully tried to oust mitch mcconnell from his leadership role has now been ousted from a key committee by mcconnell. florida's rick scott revealed

that he had been replaced on the senate commerce committee. scott said he learned of the decision in a text message. when asked if he thought the move was in retaliation for his challenge to mcconnell's leadership position last year, he said, quote, i probably ran the biggest company of almost any senator in the history of the country. >> certainly committed the largest medicare fraud. >> yes, that. i've got a business background, so you should ask him. in november, scott received just ten votes in his bid to replace mcconnell. i don't think a lot of folks were on board. one of those votes came from utah's mike lee, who was also replaced on the senate commerce committee. a spokesman for mcconnell's office declined to comment on the situation. it is worth noting that the big company scott mentioned running was forced to pay nearly $2 billion in fines for defrauding medicare under his leadership.

if you're wondering why you just got a text message, i don't think it was worth the phone call. >> also, i just think rick scott bragging about his business background is like george santos bragging about his resume. like, why do you even draw attention to it when you had to pay $2 billion in fines for defrauding? >> don't you want the update on the monkeys? >> just a second. first, lawrence, we talked about the decline in intelligence of some of these members. i don't understand most of what rick scott does, but i couldn't figure out why he was running against mitch mcconnell. he wasn't going to win. we all knew it was going to end up this way. >> yeah. it's obviously something that could only be done by somebody

who simply doesn't understand where he is. did he think, oh, i might run for class president this year? there's a thousand reasons why you don't do this. there's one reason to do it. the one reason to do it is you will win, you will get more votes than mitch mcconnell and win. by the way, you know the answer to that before you do it. you go into the room. you know exactly how many votes you have and you still do it. it's one thing to try to get the votes before you go into the room and then you realize, oh, this is hopeless. then you kind of go and apologize to mitch for even thinking about it and be really, really nice to him. and mike lee, it's just so goofy. you know you're sitting there with a special gift, which is three so-called committees that the leader lets you have as opposed to two, which is

supposed to be the maximum. we'll make an exception and let you have three. the leader lets you have that. you're going to go and defy him and expect him to continue to do you that favor on those committees and complain when he doesn't? oh, boy. >> it's one thing if there's a vacancy in a position. >> that's proper retaliation. >> nobody takes it personally as long as everybody's just fighting for the same thing. man, if you're running against a guy that's been running your caucus for that long, you better win. >> lawrence, thank you. >> what are you doing tonight, lawrence? >> is it booked? >> yesterday was the only day i could have answered that question for you. normally at this hour of the day i have no idea and i'm asleep. i'm awake, but i have no idea. >> weeknights 10:00 p.m. eastern

on msnbc "the last word". >> people ask me after the show, who did you have on the show today? i can't remember. >> it's four hours. i do have an update on the monkey story and a question. >> willie? >> he doesn't want anything to do with us. >> i'm here. >> an update is coming in on the monkey story. let's go to the monkey desk with mika. >> members of a church are responsible for finding the monkeys taken from the dallas zoo. the family that runs the church in lancaster, texas, found them in an empty house next door. they say police found other animals there, including birds, cats, chickens.

willie, do you think joe would let me have one of those miniature goats? my friend jackie says there are some being born in may and then you bottle feed them for five wees they run around your yard. >> they do keep the grass low. back to the monkeys, so the members of the church group going door to door knocking and looking for the monkeys, i heard that was tip involved. somebody tipped them off. then you referenced another stolen monkey story. in louisiana, 12 monkeys were stolen from the zoo. what is going on? >> i don't know, but i feel like you're trying to help joe out here from answering the question. please. >> let's just move on here. >> please. that's what i want for my birthday. >> you're not getting it. up next, a major european financial institution dialled

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the dallas monkeys. >> louisiana monkeys. >> you're going to wake up tomorrow morning and found out there are monkeys they found in san francisco. >> maybe. these zoos have cameras everywhere. what is going on? >> there's a conspiracy. this is a plot for fight club 2.

the bank of england this morning hiked interest rates by 50 basis points while toning down some of its previous bleak economic forecast and now sees a much shallower recession than feared. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin and stephanie ruhle. >> they are going to elevate the conversation. >> to the global economy. >> stephanie agrees with me. >> i'm sure she does. andrew, let's start with you. so yesterday we had the fed chairman and the fed raise interest rates by a quarter of a point. things like inflation is slowing down, the inflationary pressures. this morning we had breaking news the same thing was happening in britain. they think they may have reached

peak inflation. does this mean we're going to have a soft landing? >> getting into a better position of likely a softer landing. if you look at what the u.k.'s language was this morning they took out the word forcefully, which i think a lot of people are seeing as positive. they don't plan to keep raising rates at the same extent and don't feel that pressure to. the flip side is in the united states jay powell didn't really say that, but a lot of market watchers are trying to read into things he's saying in the most optimistic of lights. we've been talking to a lot of people in the past 24 hours who think maybe the federal reserve in the united states will actually continue on the path it's on maybe more than the market would like or is currently anticipating given the way we've seen the market react in the past 24 hours. my sense is, on the whole, you take both of these things

combined and you put it in the category of good news rather than bad. >> stephanie, we got the news out of the u.s. yesterday, got news out of britain this morning, the euro zone a little more aggressive on hiking interest rates. what's your read? >> nobody is having a dance party over in the u.k. the economy isn't growing. if you look at the rate it's growing, it's even behind russia. however, just four or five months ago, think about the disastrous bleak outlook there was overseas and here. it felt disastrous. it felt like things were getting more expensive by the day. things are definitely improving. there are signs that softer landing is more likely. the thing that was most notable about jay powell, he has been in the hot seat for so long with the fed being the only ones with

a tool that could be used to fight off inflation. but now jay powell is sort of saying, hey, the debt ceiling isn't something i can do anything about. it's as though he's saying turn your attention to congress, because the biggest risk our economy faces is the u.s. defaulting and the only place to look is congress, not me. >> and today, andrew, big earnings day for reporting. what are you looking at? >> i think you're seeing the market is being buoyed in large part by the earnings report we heard from facebook or meta, which had taken a beating. it's a stock that had taken a beating for the last year and a half in large part because investors didn't believe in the whole metaverse theory and the tens of billions that mark zuckerberg was spending for everybody who put goggles on. they thought he was being

undisciplined about it. yesterday he rewrote that narrative. the stock up 20% on the back of this news. one, that the advertising marginally better and the costs weren't going to go up as much. they also authorized a $40 billion stock buyback. think about what you would do if you had $40 billion. you could buy twitter, snap or half the tech industry with that kind of money. all of that giving people a little bit of a hop in their step this morning. you're seeing that specifically on the nasdaq. >> how do we explain to working class, middle class americans who are struggling to make it to work because of the price of gas going through the roof over the past year, who are struggling with home heating costs, who are

having to make some really difficult decisions, have had to make really difficult decisions. then they see on tv that shell, that exxon, that these oil companies, many of whom pay lower tax rates than they do, are making record profits, tens of billions of dollars. >> there is nothing you can say to that american that's going to make them feel good, because there's no good news about it. we know where gas prices were, where oil prices were over the last year. we saw them soar with the war on ukraine. these companies have now got record profits. we're seeing shell with a huge, much like meta, share buyback program. if they have money to spend, where are they spending it? they are now spending some money on drilling in the u.s., which

is good. that will make us more independent. listen, this is how free markets work. we should remind our audience, though, at different times when prices are down, those companies don't make tons of money and we're not necessarily talking about it. but this one stings. when you think about the rough year people just had, especially around gas prices and heating their homes and you watch companies like money like this, it leaves a really bad taste in your mouth. >> absolutely. stephanie ruhle with the 11th hour. thank you, stephanie. andrew ross sorkin, thank you as well. also los angeles international airport lost power yesterday for about an hour according to a tweet on lax's twitter account, the airfield itself was fine, but some terminals, traffic lights and other systems lost power. the power outage also forced the tsa to stop screening passengers

and caused some flights to be delayed. the los angeles department of water and power are still investigating what caused the outage. >> that's not good. >> not good. coming up, a look behind the curtain at broadway's reimagining of a shakespeare classic. reimagining of a shakespeare classic. when you stay at a vrbo you always get the whole home because is it really a vacation home if you have to share a house with a host? ♪ only with vrbo i've never been healthier. shingles doesn't care. ♪ but shingrix protects.

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would happen if juliet did not die at the end of romeo and juliet. joining us now, lorna courtney, who plays juliet and paolo shot who plays the role of lance. thanks for being here. eight shows a week, you're up late at night. thanks for being here in the morning. for people who haven't seen or heard about this, explain what the show is. it's selling out, setting records. selling out, setting records. >> this is the story of romeo and juliet, but there's a twist. in our version, it's what happens if juliet doesn't die. she gets -- it's a show about second chances that's really what it is it's about love. it's about friendship. and everyone can relate to that. >> so paulo lance is a character i don't remember from romeo an

someone new to the story. we should tell people you are a tony award winner, an accomplished opera singer. you have this long resume, and now you're doinghi this really n show. tell us about lance. >> well,ow lance is a character invented by william shakespeare's wife anne hathaway in search of telling that story that lorna just told us about. so she brings up a lot of new characters into the o story to exactly to tellst something new and to accomplish a different result from what we all know. so it's a lot of fun, you know. as you mentioned, i used to do a lot of drama, a lot of opera pieces, but when i found myself in this environment of joy, you know, especially after so long without our homes, our theaters. i am having a blast, you know, and the cast is so fantastic, so talented, and the audience have fun.

we have fun, and it's one of those shows that you want to come back next day. >> well, it's a party. i>> mean, it's a sing along. people know the words to all the songs. >> oh, yeah. >> how much fun is that for you lorna, first of all to get to sing these songs then to look out and see people jumping around and singing back to you. >> it's amazing, and every day, every night is so different. each performance is a different audience, so that's the beauty of live t'theater. we get to roll with that and the audience reactions are always different every time. and we're simply just playing. that's what it is. we're playing but we're also story telling, and we hope that people leave with -- i hope that for myself people leave with a message of standing up for oneself, and owning one's truth and just loving oneself and putting oneself first and knowing that it's okay to do that. >> yeah, so paulo, we mentioned some of the songs.so i mean, nothing but bangers

here. >> right? >> contemporary hits. >> no skips whatsoever. how do the songs get chosen, and you know, what kind of role do they play to bring this story to life? >> well, david, the writer, he selected from this vast catalog of songs. and i believe that in this show, the songs tell the story. it's not one of those shows that the music starts and everything stops. no, the songs continue to tell the story. so it's very important, and at the same time it's a challenge to transform in a way these pop songs that everybody knows into the drama that we are living on stage. >> mika. >> all right, so just willie, i'm uscurious, i mean, this loo so great and obviously audiences are loving it. i'm just -- i'm stuck on one thing, and that is if juliet

didn't die but romeo dies? >> well, you'll just have to see. >> no spoilers. >> that's a good point. >> oh, okay. i love it. >> there are several twists. >> oh, my gosh. okay. good. good to know. >> that answers that. >> we don't want to answer that question. lorna, let's talk about your personal story. we've talked about paulo's amazing resume. >> yes. >> so you grew up in queens get laguardia on the basis of your b talent, go to college, and do i have this story right you were working at equinox gym when you get the phone call that you're going to be the leade in this broadway show? >> yes, that is correct. and i had to take the phone call into an office and some of my co-workers came in with me, and we were all -- we were listening in, and then we were just screaming jumping up and down and people were like looking at us. but they're just so loving and so supportive, and i almost couldn't believe it, you know.

it's like shock. >> i'm sure, right. >> but -- and the casting director for this show, steven cope l also worked out at the gym, and i saw him a couple of days earlier. and he was like i'm not going to tell l you, and i was just like- >> he left you hanging like that. >> i was just like what? >> were you putting in good words at the gym when you saw him there? it's been a blast. i had a -- from the time i got the phone call, it's been over a year, and it was about five or six months before we started rehearsals for toronto. we rehearsed here in new york, and then we went to toronto and for two and a half months we stayed in the same apartment complex where the theater was across the street, so we've really grown close like a family. >> you've seen a lot in your career, what's it like to work with lorna? >> it's fantastic. lorna is one of those talents that you look at her and you

know how kind she is and then she opened her mouth to sing and you just fall in love with that lady, and it's really a blast. >> well, there's a reason that and juliet has broken the box office record at the sondheim theater. lorna courtney, paulo szat, it's the show everybody's talking about. great to meet you both, congrats. thank you guys so much. we'rebo counting down the days until the forbes know your value 3050 summit in abu dhabi, we hope you can join us. this not to be missed event will take place over international women's day, and we have an incredible lineup of speakers including -- and there is a long list -- hillary clinton, gloria steinham malala, ayesha curry and so many more. we have some more announcements

later this week andme next week. we're going to talk about professional success, personal fulfillment, that long runway and especially impact. we're also going to be networking, mentoring, building relationships and connections that will last a lifetime, and change the world. go to forbes.com or knowyourvalue.com to get your tickets today, and also considering bringing someone. i'mng bringing a lot of mentees and colleagues that you want to help develop and grow and reward. we'd love see you there for the forbes know your value 30/50 summit in abu dhabi. that does it for us this morning. josé diaz-balart, oh, my gosh, those are the monkeys in the zoo in utica, just fyi. jose picks up the coverage after a short break.

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