it is a change from ron klain in that respect. mi michael, thank you for joining "way too early." we got through it on a friday morning. a little bit of a sore throat, a little cold. i even managed the sports, but i'm done. "morning joe" starts right now. a group of people that came -- i don't know where they came from. i'm looking at this omar from minnesota. if one-half of the things they're saying about her are true, she shouldn't even be in office. >> that was then president trump back in 2019, around the time he told a group of congressmen to go back where you came from. if there's any doubt on whether the gop still belongs to maga, look at yesterday's vote to remove ilhan omar from her committee post. the pentagon continues to track what appears to be a

chinese surveillance balloon that flew over montana. it comes as secretary antony blinken makes his first trip to beijing. plus, a new estimate on the number of russian soldiers who have died in ukraine. it could show how desperate vladimir putin has become in this nearly year-long war. meteorologists are predicting the worst wind chills in decades in the northeast this weekend. look at that. it could get as low as negative 50 in some parts. >> negative 50? "the times" said yesterday that the top of mount washington, negative 100, willie. now, you and i, of course, have done that in some of our -- you know, willie and i, sometimes we've done the antarctica thing. we do that extreme, like, mountain climbing stuff. i forget what you call it. >> little rough for you. >> minus 100, willie. >> yeah, well, when we summited norway -- excuse me -- summited

everest, it got close to that cold. thank god there were the sherpas who helped us get up there. it gets breezy up there, too. >> it does. >> all right. of course three of us who have actually climbed a mountain, that would not be either of you, but okay. >> what do you mean? we've climbed -- you don't believe we went to the top of everest? >> okay. >> it was -- >> yeah. >> listen, we lost a lot of good men out there, willie and i did. >> we did. >> kind of like "wedding crashers." good morning, everyone. welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, february 3rd. >> did you hear what happened by katty? >> surprised by a thong story. >> katty, derek jeter, tell us what happened. >> golden thong, no. it was like 5:30 in the morning. you don't talk about golden -- actually, you don't talk about golden thongs on television ever, but 5:30 in the morning,

it was far too intimate. >> who did that to you? >> willie? >> derek jeter was on the "tonight show" with jimmy fallon. during true confessions, he r thong to work out of a slump. it was given to him by a teammate who said, "trust me, it works." >> less dramatic ways to go about that. >> it worked. >> i think so. >> go to the batting cage a little longer. >> i have things i can say, but i'm not comfortable. former chairman of the republican national committee michael steel is with us this morning. good to have you. michael all in blue. nice to have you on this friday. >> it is nice. michael is sitting there going -- >> he's going, why am i here today? >> better ways of breaking out of slumps. >> the thought crossed my mind. >> let's go right to the news. this morning, we are following a number of high-stakes

developments with china. the lead in "the new york times," "the u.s. aims to defer china with greater u.s. military presence in philippines." this as secretary blinken is due to visit china sunday, where he is expected to meet with president xi jinping. it is the first by an american secretary of state in six years and comes amid rising tensions between the two nations. against that backdrop, the spy drama that the pentagon has been nervously following for a number of days now. right now, a spy balloon believed to have been sent by china is flying over the united states. according to "the wall street journal," travelers on a commercial plane first spotted the high-altitude balloon on wednesday as it hovered over billings, montana. the pentagon has since -- >> by the way, by the way, if people are wondering why it is in montana, it started in alaska. aleutian islands, alaska, and came down through canada and

just crossed into the united states in montana. i know montana sounds kind of like a random place to start for a chinese spy balloon. >> it's making its way. >> the pentagon since confirmed the incident, saying yesterday it was tracking and monitoring the balloon. but declined to say where it was currently located. a senior white house official tells nbc news that they are confident the balloon was sent by china, though the administration has not said so publicly. the official added that president biden was briefed on the matter and followed the recommendation of his advisers, that the balloon not be shot out of the sky for concerns of safety of those on the ground. the white house does say, however, it acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information. china has not admitted to sending the balloon and says it is working to learn more about the situation. a beijing spokesperson added

today that the country, quote, always abides by international law and has no intention of infringing on any country's territory. >> of course not. >> yikes. willie? >> for some more detail on this, let's bring in nbc news national security and military correspondent, courtney kube, who broke the story for us at nbc. courtney, wow. first of all, reading through the details of the story and looking at the history of it, it turns out this happens from time to time. there are balloons floating around, looking down on the united states, sometimes from china specifically. also, it was within range of being shot down, but the defense department made a decision not to do that. can you explain a little bit how often this happens and where the balloon may be now? >> so we know of at least two other times this has happened in the past. it's not just during the biden administration. it's happened during past administrations, as well. the difference about this one that's caused more concern is that the balloon -- in past

cases, these ariel surveillance assets will come near the u.s. or maybe go into the u.s. for a short time, then they leave again. this one flew, as you could see from the map, from the aleutian islands, through canada to montana. it's been there several days, which has officials concerned about it. you mentioned it is in montana. that's not too far from the air force base where the u.s. has intercontinental missiles. it is one of the strategic ballistic missile sites in the united states. now, as far as we know, it was never closer than 200 miles, but the balloon is still flying over the continental u.s., and officials are not tells us where it is at this point. so that's one of the things. you mentioned also the potential of this to be shot down. this raised a level of concern. on wednesday, secretary of defense lloyd austin, traveling in manila at the time, convened a meeting with his senior

defense leaders, including mark milley, the head of norad. austin called them together for a meeting. it was the middle of the night in the philippines. they talked about the potential track for this thing, where it was coming from, where it was going. the potential collection, the intelligence collection capabilities, which they believe to be somewhat minimal. they don't think that this can collect very much. and they even brought in aircraft, including surveillance aircraft and f-22 fighter jets, with the potential to bring this thing down. they scrambled these aircraft to both look at it and the potential to shoot it down. now, ultimately, they decided that, given the fact it didn't have a ton of collection capability, and they looked at the potential for taking it down, and the debris field it'd create on the ground, they made a recommendation to president biden not to shoot it down but to continue to monitor and track it. that's where they landed. president biden agreed with that decision. according to a senior defense official who i spoke with yesterday, they're literally monitoring this on a minute-by-minute basis. they are maintaining both the

ability and the decision-making space to take it down if need be. >> nbc's courtney kube, thank you very much. we appreciate your reporting there. strange. >> yeah. katty, this comes amid a back drop of rising tensions between the u.s. and china. there's some cross-currents here. first of all, antony blinken, secretary of state, invited to meet with president xi. he would be the first member of the biden administration, high-ranking member of the biden administration to do that. at the same time, loud austin, secretary of the defense, going to the philippines. the philippines really committing to a strong military presence and talking about challenging some of china's expansions in the south china seas. of course, we've been beefing up our defense arrangements with australia, with japan, with other countries in that region. so it's interesting.

the blinken meeting with president xi suggests an opening between the two nations, but there's a backdrop of a lot of drama here. >> there is a backdrop of a lot of drama here. there is also a backdrop of a certain amount of resolution's south pacific area. australi australians you mentioned when we covered the submarine deal, when that happened. the australians had been wondering if they could play both sides of the china and u.s. kind of competition, if you'd like, now clearly opted to be firmly in the u.s. camp. the philippines look like they're doing the same. tony blinken goes to china with a pretty strong hand in terms of allies coming on board to try and limit china's movements in the south china sea. but i think the main thing i'm hearing from people who deal with china a lot, particularly, actually, in the business community, joe, is that they are relieved that there is any contact happening. during the years of covid and

the kind of chinese lockdown, but really as the chinese were getting more aggressive toward foreign investment and foreign companies in china, there was a total breakdown in communication between this white house and officials in china. that is what people felt was particularly dangerous. so the fact that blinken is going for this high-level meeting, they're showing they are talking again, i think that thereby quite a relief to -- certainly to american businesspeople who are investing in china. >> it certainly may be a step in the right direction. china has had a brutal two, three, four years. it's been self-inflicted. >> yeah. >> damage to china's economy, to their society, has been self-inflicted. we'll see if this is the beginning of a new chapter for them as they move beyond covid and try to move a bit away from just an extreme totalitarian approach that they've opted for over the past three, four years. >> few moments, we'll be joined

by admiral james stavridis. we'll talk about this and also the developments overnight in ukraine, as well. back to politics in d.c., though. democratic congresswoman ilhan omar of minnesota has been formally removed from the house foreign affairs committee. 218 republicans voted to back the resolution, removing omar from the committee, and condemning her for her past anti-semitic comments for which she has apologized. one republican, dave joyce of ohio, a senior member of the ethics committee, voted present. all 211 house democrats voted against omar's removal. omar spoke ahead of the vote, displaying a picture of herself as a 9-year-old girl in a refugee camp, and calling on her experiences as a refugee from somalia. >> representation matters. continuing to expand our ideas of who is american and who can

partake in the american experience, experiment, is a good thing. i am an american. an american who was sent here -- [ applause ] an american who was sent here by her constituents to represent them in congress. a refugee who survived the horrors of a civil war. someone who spent her childhood in a refugee camp. someone who knows what it means to have a shot at a better life here in the united states. and someone who believes in the american dream and the american possibility and the promise and the ability to participate in the democratic process. >> the vote to remove congresswoman omar was along party lines, 218-211. some of those 211 democrats spoke out in defense of congresswoman omar, calling out republican hypocrisy for not disciplining their own members.

>> i think one of the things that we should talk about here is also one of the disgusting legacies after 9/11, has been the targeting and racism against muslim-americans throughout the united states of america. and this is an extension of that legacy. consistency, there is nothing consistent with the republican party's continued attack, except for the racism and incitement of violence against women of color in this body. i had a member of the republican caucus threaten my life, and you all and the republican caucus rewarded him with one of the most prestigious committee assignments in this congress. don't tell me this is about consistency. don't tell me that this is about a condemnation of anti-semitic remarks, when you have a member of the republican caucus who has talked about jewish space lasers and an entire amount of tropes and also elevated her to some of the highest committee assignments in this body. this is about targeting women of color in the united states of america. don't tell me because i didn't get a single apology --

>> time has expired. >> -- when my life one threatened. thank you. >> she has never posted a video depicting herself decapitating and killing fellow members of congress. she doesn't question whether a plane really smashed into the pentagon on 9/11. she does not wonder if school shootings in america are staged. she has not propagated the absurd notion that space lasers are the cause of wildfires in california. she has never equated vaccine mandates with adolph hitler. >> so it's really stark, michael steel, the hypocrisy. it's such a great point by aoc. she actually had somebody, gosar, threatening her life, glorifying an image of her getting her head chopped off in a cartoon. then you go down the mtg things,

the killing, the decapitating -- well, the -- all the other things, and the space lasers financed by jewish families. of course, of course, she's holding a gun. i think it was an ar-15 in an ad. said that she needed to go on the offensive against the squad. there was a picture of ilhan omar, aoc. i mean, it really is -- again, the hypocrisy is absolutely, absolutely crazy. i will say, congresswoman omar made a couple of statements that were considered anti-semitic. she apologized for them. i must say, they certainly were no worse, and i would say far less egregious than what we hear

from donald trump, what we hear from donald trump's guests, dinner guests. what we've been hearing from the republican party over the past five, six years. what we saw coming out of charlottesville. this is not a close call. >> it's not a close call. in fact, when you step back and look at the egregious behavior of republicans like taylor greene. not only, you know, threatening with guns, showing these images, but attending rallies with mr. fuentes, identified, known nazi. one who had dinner with the former president of the united states. this has nothing to do with any of that. at the end of the day, this is kevin mccarthy's payback.

this is saying nothing could have been done to stop this from happening. it was ordained by marjorie taylor greene and others in the freedom caucus. that if you become speaker, you take her out. take out swalwell and others. the reality now that we've done this, that's a check box. that retribution, that's been paid back. it is not how you govern. again, this is what the american people said they were okay with because they voted them into power. so i'm not letting people off the hook here. all the pleas from people about what happened here, you knew it was going to happen. they told you this is what they were going to do. you voted for it anyway. >> yeah and -- >> i just -- i'm tired of folks sort of, you know, wanting to

focus it exclusively on the bad behavior of these members. these members are there because the american people put them there. >> right. >> you get the consequences from their behavior when you vote for it. i mean, this is the way that democracy is set up. you don't like the behavior, you don't want to be governed this way, you don't put the idiots in charge of the house. >> they voted for him. you're exactly right. again, we can look at -- >> shouldn't be surprised. >> -- the members. look at the people who voted. boebert went on a greed against omar. at a rally, saying she needed to go back to where she came from, according to trump. all these people attacking her.

ilhan omar is the one who is stripped of her committee membership? i mean, the thing is, i know that this is far too difficult for kevin mccarthy and other republicans to understand, but we don't need people on the committees that all look like me and have my background and have my family's background and have my world view and my very -- i think mika might say -- overly optimistic view of what america does at home and across the globe, michael steel. or even people with your background, people with traditional backgrounds that go on these committees. it's good to have a woman who lived in a refugee camp, who survived, who survived a civil

war, who may not have as, let's just say, traditional view about the united states of america as i do. i love the friction. i love the debate. it's how we get better as a people. yes, ilhan omar says a lot of things that i disagree with. aoc says a lot of things i disagree with. that's america. >> we stand with them this morning. >> oh, my god, we stand with them this morning. not only do we stand with them -- >> 100%. >> -- we stand with something much, much bigger than just them. we stand, again, with this intellectual diversity, this friction, where we get on these committees and we fight. i had -- >> that's the point. >> not to go on too long, but, you know, when i was on the judiciary committee, my gosh,

maxine waters and i had some knockdown, drag out fights. we became great friends because of it. >> yeah. >> and we got to understand each other much better because of it. they have -- they have damaged congress by doing this. >> oh, yes. >> continue to damage congress. >> they have made it an intellectually weaker place to work. >> intellectually weaker? you're presuming there is intellect to begin with. i mean, we haven't seen that in a long while. >> i agree. >> this goes beyond the pale. i mean, look, the reality of it is, the concept is we come from all parts of the country. it's just as you said, joe. you bring a southern boy from alabama, a northern boy from new hampshire, you know, a young woman from a refugee camp.

you put these folks in this space to represent this great experiment. and the idea is that you not only get along, but you actually try to solve the problems that come from your own personal experience that you know about and have lived, but you also help others solve those problems. we don't do that anymore. what we saw -- what we see now is the performative b.s., which is the only thing this gop can offer the american people. it has no policy. this party has no platform. it does not put forth and just accepts baked over ideas that they then don't even fashion into legislation. so this fulfills and ch checks boxes they want to check with the base that is angry and pissed off and further stoked by the bad behavior. and instead of, you know, going to ilhan and understanding and recognizing, okay, just like you

did with maxine, okay, we disagree on policy, let's try to work through this, i'm just going to show up at your office. i'm just going to, you know, protest you. i'm going to go after you personally. how do you govern in that space? >> right. >> and the difference -- real quick, joe. you know this. >> yeah. >> the difference is the leadership, man. it's the leadership. >> yeah. >> here we are. >> i'm so glad you said that. i may have brought this up once before, but, willie, when i first got to congress, i would sit there and talk to floyd spence. floyd spence was an old, conservative south carolina representative. he was about as conservative as it got. but let me tell you something, when i started talking to him about members on the armed services committee that he worked with, if i said anything bad about any of them, man, he

would shut me down. he said, "let me tell you something. they come from a different background than i do in south carolina. we have differences of opinions. one is a former black panther, but they're men and women of honor. and when we get into the committee room, we sit down and talk." >> that's what it is about. >> here, you had this guy from the deep south, raised in the segregationist south, talking about working with a ranking member, a former black panther, and he said, "he's a man of his word. i learn from him. he learns from me. i learn from -- he shows me my blind spots. i suggest to him where he may have blind spots. and our committee is so much richer because of it." i was told that my first day in washington, d.c., from a conservative's conservative.

man, floyd spence was so right. and, i mean, congress ran better because of it. these committees ran better because of it. nobody is thinking like that in washington, d.c., anymore. >> yeah, that spirit is gone. there's no question. we should note, there was a small handful of republicans who didn't want this to happen. nancy mace, ken buck. it was a small group. kevin mccarthy needed their votes. they went into a room yesterday to negotiate a little bit. they agreed to vote to oust congresswoman omar after mccarthy promised them, going forward, there would be more due process than a straight vote on this. now, that doesn't do congresswoman any good here, but at least maybe there won't be this tit for tat going forward that we were talking about yesterday. katty kay, this is another case that speaks broadly not just to the hypocrisy, but people roll their eyes at the outrage of republicans on this matter when they've stood by and continue to stand by members of their own caucus, but also the leader of

their party, the man they followed now for seven years, donald trump, with his anti-semitism. it's beyond hypocrisy. it's preposterous to a lot of people to see them feign outrage. >> marjorie taylor greene is on the homeland security committee, and she flirted at one point with the idea that a plane didn't fly into the pentagon. it was a government hoax. she rolled back from that, but she did it in a mild way. she said, well, i followed some conspiracies, and it's kind of the fault of the conspiracies that i have believed some bad stuff. ilhan omar has had a real apology about what she's said. she used the word -- she said, "listen, i learned if my fellow jewish members of congress, and i realize the pain of these anti-semitic tropes." her apology, i felt, was more authentic. what joe is getting to is right. it's the need for diversity of thought. it is whether it's in congress, the top of corporations, whether it is in american universities,

which are increasingly becoming monolithic in the way they think. yet, we have study after study around the world that shows us that when we have diversity of opinion and experience in top leadership positions, wherever, whether in politic, business, academia, you get better results, you do. the metrics are there. you get better results. without that diversity of opinion, if we're going to get into a position -- and maybe the republican party needs to do some thinking because there is diversity of opinion within the current republican congressional caucus. it's just, it's being drowned out by the loudest voices. that, you know, that is not going to be good for the health of the party in the long run. >> no, this is sad and destructive. i'll say, on a personal note, i was brought up on having a diversity of ideas at the dinner table. >> right. >> anybody my parents brought over in washington for dinners and even state dinners, it would be, you know, who do we disagree with? let's have them over.

it would be debates over the dinner table, and it was fascinating. it made everybody better. it also made me have one republican brother and one democrat, then we waffling in the middle. >> and your dad -- >> from one family. >> who worked for your dad? rice, madeleine albright worked for your dad. secretary gates worked for your dad. >> he loved that. >> republicans and democrats. >> he wanted to be challenged. he wasn't afraid to be challenged. >> right. >> this is really where your stories from congress really apply. because you have amazing stories about people from very different sides of an opinion on something or the aisle getting along and finding ways to have a relationship. >> well, i talked about floyd spence. one of the people he talked to was ron delms. oh, liberal, radical, sure i

said that on the campaign trail. so what did i do after -- and this goes to leadership. what did i do after i heard this from spence? the next day on the floor, i walk up to ron. i had an hour talk with ron dellums, and i fell in love with the guy. he was a hero the rest of congress. the reason why, anybody who knows ron dellums knows, he didn't say, "this is what i believe." he'd say, "man, why do you believe what you believe? i'm fascinated." we would sit there, and we would talk. just made me so much better. also, again, you learn your own blind spots. >> yes. >> you learn what you have right, what you may need to work on. this is what makes any organization, not just congress -- >> we built this show on that, civil conversation. >> right. >> we'll continue the conversation, and it appears to be something that's dangerously

broken in washington. we want to check in on the weather. we have some dangerous weather ahead. let's go to meteorologist angie lassman for a check on the frigid forecast. angie, we mean frigid. what's going on? >> yeah, dangerously cold for a lot of people. looks great in boston right now. over the next 24 hours, we could be talking about record lows for them tomorrow morning. we have plenty of alerts up. they are wind chill alerts. advi advisories, watches, warnings, all on the table. 56 million people will be affected by the alerts right now. check out how many people will see wind chills below zero by the time we get into tomorrow. 100 million people are included in that. 18 million people are going to see wind chills below 20. 20 below zero. bitter cold temperatures settling in. for some, we're waking up to minus 8. what it feels like in detroit right now. minus 13 in chicago. washington, d.c., not bad, when we consider where we're going to go for tomorrow. especially in places like northern maine, where we could see minus 50, minus 60 degree

wind chills. temperatures, actual temperatures well below zero for a wide swath of the northeast. 10 degrees is what you'll wake up to tomorrow in new york, feeling like minus 7. by sunday, 40s, mid 40s at that in new york. 50 degrees by monday and tuesday. washington, d.c., you are nearing 60 on tuesday. boston, we'll return back to the mid 40s by the time we head into next week. you know, if you don't like the weather, guys, just wait a while. in the meantime, bundle up if you are heading out this weekend. >> angie lassman, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest from ukraine as russia's soaring death toll gives new insight into the state of the war. plus, former president trump is going after florida governor desantis again. and former vice president pence is teasing a 2024 white house run of his own. >> by the way, donald trump now

saying he may not support the republican who wins in 2024. >> that sounds just like donald trump. also ahead, congresswoman boebert who celebrated metal detecters being removed from the house chamber last month calls on americans to buy more guns. we'll show you her new comments from the house floor. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. research shows people remember ads with a catchy song. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's a little number you'll never forget. did you know that liberty mutual custo— ♪liberty mutual♪ ♪ only pay for what you need♪ ♪only pay for what you need♪ ♪ custom home insurance created for you all♪ ♪now the song is done♪ ♪back to living in your wall♪

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at 6:37 in the morning on a friday morning in washington. the united states and the philippines announce plans to expand america's military in the

country, with access to four additional military sites. the move comes as china has taken increasingly aggressive actions toward taiwan, which it maintains is part of its territory. the new agreement would allow the united states to put military equipment in facilities in as many as nine locations inside the philippines. that move would create the largest u.s. military presence in the philippines in some 30 years. joining us now, former supreme allied commander of nato, james stavridis. he is chief analyst for nbc news. good to see you this morning. a fascinating move by the united states to increase its footprint in the philippines, particularly since the secretary of state, antony blinken, is headed to china on sunday to meet with president xi. >> indeed, it is. take a look at that map. the concept here, and it is a very smart one strategically, is simply this, to create a string of bases that run from japan in

the north through south korea, just south of that, through, ultimately, the philippines, and then it curves around, willie, down to australia. so you really have a band of u.s. logistics capability that we could move forward if we had to, for example, defend south korea, defend japan, defend taipei, taiwan. all of those become real possibilities. hooked to that, willie, is the stand-up of the first new u.s. marine corps base in 70 years. that one is a little ways back. that's in guam. it's called camp blaze. the commandant of the marine corps has been in asia this week talking about that new base as well as the new basing arrangements in the northern philippines. it's smart strategy and tactics. >> from your experience, admiral, do all of these moves put together signal the united

states belief that china actually may move on taiwan at some point in the near future, or is it more deterrence? is it, hey, don't think about moving on taiwan? >> willie, it is a little bit of both. i'll make the worst pun of the morning and say that conversation with the philippines and a new marine base will go over like a lead balloon in china. >> ah. >> ah-ha-ha. but let's face it, it is going to create some deterrence, and it really creates some uncertainty in the mind of president xi. hopefully that will have a chilling effect on any aspirations to move toward taiwan. >> so, admiral, we often look back, and we've been talking about harry truman over the past couple years. we often look back at the truman administration and how what truman and marshall and atchison, what they all stitched together created a post-war

world that helped launch the american century. i don't -- it may sound like an overstatement now, but, really, i think we would be doing our viewers a disservice if we were so fearful of sounding like we were being cheerleaders for this administration, that we didn't talk about the truth of what's happened over the past year. quickly, i'll go through it quickly in europe. you have nato, which was on the cusp of basically being thrown overboard by donald trump had he been re-elected. a strengthened nato. you have finland and sweden and, as you've said, turning the baltic sea into the nato lake. you have germany committing to more defense spending than russia spends annually. you have a permanent base in poland. really, the flexing of poland's muscles militarily. europe, which has just been transformed over the past year. now, we go to asia. you look at australia.

we saw this very early on. australia's new commitment to flex their muscles to push back. japan doing now what germany was talking about doing, an extraordinary post-war move. we've talked about the philippines this morning. you've talked about guam. this is something, is it not, that military historians are going to be looking back at if we continue on this arc, 10, 20, 30 years from now, and talking about what a remarkable year this has been for america's alliances, for the alliance of democratic nations, to push back against the spread of these authoritarian regimes? >> well said. and let's, by the way, underline that this has been secretary of defense lloyd austin having these conversations. but it's very much part of tony blinken's wheelhouse.

this is diplomacy coming up alongside defense. you know, i was often asked when i was nato commander, "oh, are we going to have a nato in asia?" and the answer to that is no. the cultures are too different. the history is too different. the distance is immensely challenging in ways. joe, you are absolutely right to point out this glittery array of alliances, which is our most significant comparative advantage in the world. final thought, the philippines. you know, we were kind of pushed away from the philippines during the previous administration there of rodrigo duterte. now, we have a son of marcos there. relations are warmer. that may be the most significant move on comparative basis. yes, if you're in beijing, it creates uncertainty in your mind. that creates deterrence. that avoids conflict.

that's the key. >> all right. russian president vladimir putin is warning the u.s. and its allies that moscow cannot be defeated in ukraine. his remarks came yesterday during a speech to mark the 80th anniversary of the soviet triumph in the battle of stalingrad. >> but he said that as near he 200,000 russian troops have been killed or wounded in ukraine. that number according to "the new york times." "the times" notes u.s. officials say moscow has been sending poorly trained recruits to the front lines, some that they just pulled straight out of prison, resulting in hundreds of troops being wiped out daily. admiral, none of us could have ever imagined that one year in, that russia's casualty count would be 200,000. by the way, that may be a conservative estimate. now, "the times," of course, the story goes on to say, but putin

will be able to keep his head down and keep fighting this war. those of us who remember how afghanistan ended, not so sure of that. there comes a point, even in russian society, there even came a point in soviet society, where the mothers of young men said "enough," and the soviet leaders had no choice but to listen. >> interesting. >> put that number in comparison, 200,000 casualties in less than one year of war. just to put that in a context, in 20 years of war in iraq and afghanistan, 20 years, the u.s., tragically, had 7,000 killed in action. here, we're approaching somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000. my view, that's unsustainable. my fact set would include the fact that the last time putin called up a draft just a few

months ago, a constriction, 200,000 to 300,000 young russian males of military age departed the pattern. they left the country. they're in kazakhstan. they're in eastern europe. they are anywhere but inside vladimir putin's russia. i think he's going to have a hard time sustaining this going forward. but i will close on this note. before we celebrate too much, putin mentioned stalingrad because, joe, in a year of combat in stalingrad, about a million russians were killed. >> wow. >> so he will like drawing that comparison, and he will reach into russian literature and point out what looks like one day in the like of ivan. russia, as mika and her family knows, can be a very difficult, very, very hard opponent. so, yeah, the trend lines are going against putin at the

moment in that land war, but we need to continue to watch him. above all, provide the ukrainians the material they need to push back on the next wave. >> 100%. let's bring in "new york times" reporter anna swanson, who writes about trade and international economics. she's been reporting on how russia is importing western products into the country despite sanctions. so has there been any consequence to them in this respect, or are they still getting everything they need from the west in terms of the different products that are still going in? shipments from all over the world, actually. >> well, i would say there have been consequences. russians are not getting everything that they need. we're regularly hearing reports filtering out of russia of people unable to access medicines. they're frustrated with the high price of goods on the shelves or inferior goods. but, overall, if you look at the trade data, data is showing that

there have been these recent surges in trade with some of russia's neighbors and ally. that suggests countries like turkey, china, belarus, the former soviet republics, are stepping in to provide russia with some of the goods that it used to get from the west, before the invasion. analysts estimate now that russia's imports are actually probably back to pre-war levels. so i would certainly say that sanctions are having some consequences, but it does raise questions about how influential the sanctions will be in really changing the course of the war. >> anna, if they're evaing sanctions on a range of goods, what about things they need for repairing and restocking their military, for example? computer chips that are banned in terms of sales from the west at least. i think one of the mysteries of what's happening in ukraine is how the russian military has managed to hold out as long as it can, in terms of resupply.

does it suggest they're getting what they need from china or from iran or from other countries, india perhaps? i don't know. but something is happening that means they can carry on restocking their military when the west thought it'd be sooner than this, that they'd run out of the ability to do so. >> it's kind of a mixed picture. their imports of semiconductors, for example, are down overall. but there has been a kind of surge in imports of these products to russia from countries like china, from areas like hong kong. so, you know, there are changes in trade patterns globally that are really helping to get some of these products back into russia. you know, it's important to note that not everything is sanctioned, obviously. the west did not put sanctions on consumer goods like smartphones or medicines. but, you know, there is some -- it does look like a suspicious

picture, as well, for russia trying to get around sanctions. >> perhaps more to be done. ana swanson, thank you for your reporting. retired admiral james stavridis, thank you, as always, for being on the show this morning. coming up, should lawmakers be allowed to carry firearms into congressional hearings? >> no, no. >> okay. >> just more comfortable. another thing to worry about. >> i wonder why we have to ask this question. here's the answer. republicans think so. we'll explain the clash among members of the house natural resources committee. >> you need to -- >> really? >> -- be carrying in the natural resources committee? >> i mean, seriously. >> it's not a constitutional right to carry the bear. congress must urgently ask the cia certain questions. "morning joe" will be right back.

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beautiful live picture of lower manhattan in new york city, where it is about to get real cold here and across the northeast. time for a look at the morning papers. we start in mississippi, where "the sun herald" has a feature on the bill that would make recording an officer a misdemeanor. anyone recording an officer could face a fine and jail time if they are less than 15 feet away from the officer. in maine, it's reported the state has set a record in overdose deaths for the third consecutive year. out of the more than 10,000 overdoses reported in 2022, 7%

resulted in death. officials believe that number would have been greater if there had not been an increased availability of narcan, which can reverse the effects of an overdose if taken in time, mika. in florida, "the miami herald" leads with a proposal to allow high school athletes to disclose information regarding their menstrual cycle. >> come on, man. seriously? you're going to do that to young girls? >> right now, participation forms mark questions about a student's period as optional. opponents say making this a requirement is an effort to, quote, demonize transgender people in sports. i actually think it's a problem for everybody. that's sort of private. >> the percentage is so small. they're doing this to every girl in florida schools? talk about overkill. >> talk about -- >> just stunning. >> and "the herald sun" reports,

north carolina lawmakers want to strengthen penalties for damages done to electrical substations. this is in response to an attack in december that left tens of thousands of people in the dark for days. the measure would make such attacks a felony that carries a sentence of up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine. to date, there have been no arrests connected to the december attack. >> i mean, let's talk about that florida law. >> oh, my god. you have to -- >> can you imagine doing that as a young girl? >> first of all -- >> when you were, like, in high school, middle school. >> katty. >> come on, talk about -- again, the obsession over 0.003% of the population. and then the unbelievably small number of transgender students who are playing sports.

the florida republican party has gone crazy. they sent out tons of mailers on this. the obsession. now, they're making young girls self-report on menstrual cycles because of this bizarre obsession? >> i mean, it's like, you know, there's a very, very, very, very tiny problem, even if you call it a problem, which is not a problem, having trans kids in schools is not a problem anyway. and take this massive hammer to attach something to do. you know what it is like having teenage girls. you've had teenage girls. every single person watching this show knows teenage girls. it's the last thing you want to ask them to talk about. they hate talking about it. to do it in this intrusive way, where they're going to have to, what, self- -- what are they going to have to do, fill in a chart? what if they're a couple days late? what happens? >> yeah. >> it's kind of -- >> this is a stupid -- michael

steel, this is another stupid extension of a culture war where he's trying to create a culture war around something where there is not a war. i said it before on this war. over 80% of americans do not believe that males who transition post puberty should participate against young women in high school sports. the international -- the international sports -- this is almost a universal standard here. ron desantis and republicans are trying to make this the ultimate culture war battle. it's just not. it's such -- again, 0.003% of the population. you take student athletes that transition, it is even less than that. now, they're going to make florida girls report on their menstrual cycles as part of this cultural -- you talk about

overkill. it's insanity. >> for me, it's not a question of overkill. it is an absolute disregard and disrespect for women. regardless of age. >> yes. >> regardless of circumstance. i'm not going to sit on this program as a man and opine about the menstrual cycles of women. nor should the florida legislature. that's no place. republicans, get your head out of your behinds. this is not the direction america wants to go. ron desantis, you think this is going to help launch your bid to become the next president of the united states? wait until you come to maryland and have that conversation about the menstrual cycle of women, all right? wait until you go to montana. wait until you go to mississippi. the reality of it is, this may work in your backyard, and this may be what floridians want for their young girls and for women, young women, but i don't think

this is something that's going to translate across the country. and this whole -- >> no. >> i mean, these are the same people who decry wokism and cancellation. you're cancelling young women. you're being woke with respect to their bodies and their maturity. and so this is no place for government, none. >> just a lack of -- the lack of privacy. we've talked before. >> yes! >> ron desantis is the opposite of conservative. he declares war on private industry that he disagrees with. he, you know, wouldn't let small business owners make decisions during the pandemic that they wanted to make, based on what they felt to be best for their economic interest. cruise liners that wanted to start back up, ron desantis had to dictate coming out of

tallahassee, telling cruise lines what they could and couldn't do. nothing conserative about this guy. now, we're talking about forcing young girls to report on their menstrual cycles because of some obsession with a culture war where, again, the overwhelming majority of americans are not fighting over this matter. >> so, joe. >> nothing conservative about this. it's just like the abortion issue. the lack of privacy. we can talk about the 10-year-old girl in ohio, the 14-year-old girl that was dreamed up by tutor dixon. rape victims from uncles. the state government saying, "you may not leave the state. you must have a forced pregnancy." what is conservative about any of this madness? >> there is nothing conservative about it. in fact, it is antithetical to everything that republicans like you and myself believed and

adhere to with respect to the proper role of government in the lives of every citizen. there's no place for this. the big debates that we had, joe, in 2010 about the emergence of a new health care system known as obamacare, and the role that government would play in that. that were these same conservatives saying about that? now, you're going to go from arguing against that type of government intrusion, as we put it then, to now saying the government wants you to check off a box whether or not you had a menstrual cycle, and let us know when that occurred? this is -- you know what? i'll tell you what ron desantis and all these woke conseratives need to do. they need to go check what's going on inside their own house. between the guns and the groping by the leadership, some of their leadership, they need to pay attention to what is going on in

their own house before they start worrying about what is going on in mine. >> well, this type of thing would only happen in ron desantis' florida, given the culture he's kind of put forward in the state. and i don't know if, on the national level, ron desantis' political approach would work in a run for the presidency. speaking of florida, former president donald trump was on with conservative radio host hue hewitt yesterday, where he commented on his potential 2024 republican rival. >> ron desantis got elected because of the -- you'll remember he had nothing. he was dead. he was leaving the race. he came over and begged me, begged me for an endorsement. he was getting ready to drop out. i gave him an endorsement. as soon as i gave that endorsement -- in fact, i said, you'll have a hard time. he was running against the commissioner of agriculture, who had a massive lead. he was running eight years as commissioner. $40 million in cash, i believe.

he was up in the poll massively, by, you know -- not even catchable. he said, "if you endorse me, i'll win." there were tears coming down from his eyes. he said, "if you endorse me, i'll win." >> these are always the details. tears coming down from his eyes," if you'll endorse me." whenever donald trump meets somebody, they go, sir. he said, "sir, i believe that, sir." the details. >> it's beautiful. >> tears coming down his eyes. trump also ramped up criticism of nikki haley. >> here we go. >> i told her she should follow her heart. you know, she said numerous times, i put it up, actually, that i'd never run if our president runs. he was a great president, et cetera. she said that numerous times. but she is a very ambitious person. she just couldn't stay in the seat. i said, you know what, nik, if you want to run, you go ahead and run. she's gone around publicly. you saw this all over the place --

>> correct. >> she said, "i'll never run against my president. he's a great president. he's been our greatest president. i'll never run. i'll never run." nikki suffers from something that is tough to suffer from, she is overly ambitious. >> really appropriate thing to say about a woman, overly ambitious. >> women, my gosh. it has to be shocking to him. >> yeah. >> that a woman could be ambitious. >> a women might actually, well, beat him. >> let's bring in white house press secretary and msnbc host, someone that donald trump would certainly suggest is overly ambitious, jen psaki. >> thank god. >> and executive editor of "the recount," also the host of "hell and high water" podcast. he called me last night. >> he is not ambitious. >> he said, "sir, if you will have me on, sir, it'd make my career." i tell you the truth, it was on video, and tears were streaming down his face. we speak, of course, of john heilemann. thank you so much for being with

us today. >> still streaming down my eyes as we speak, joe. i'm so grateful to be here. i'll tell you, if i ever run for the presidency of a morning show, i'll never be against you. never against you. you'll always be my president. >> until it happens. >> until it happens. he's very ambitious, you know, overly ambitious. >> yes, he is. >> overly ambitious, that's correct. >> the more things change, the more stays the same. the one thing we did not play was the not-so-breaking news, where donald trump said exactly what he said in 2016. that is, basically, "i will not endorse the nominee of the republican party in 2024 if it is not me." >> mm-hmm. >> right. you know, look, you know, all the phrases that come to mind as we sit here and watch this, joe. chickens coming home to roost.

reaching the whirlwhirlwind. some are biblical and others are colloqiel. in the end, he is a nihilist. if it doesn't serve his interest, he'll tear it down to the studs. been saying it for eight years. said it in 2015 and 2016, said it in 2020, and saying it now. republicans are like, oh, no, noo, we're sticking with donald trump. now, chickens roosting. whirlwind reaping. this is what we're going to see. the man is going to be a one-man wrecking crew, trying to demolish every plausible republican who might challenge him, and destroying the republican party, if necessary, even more than he already has, in the process. every republican who says they're surprised by this is

either blind or an idiot. it was predictable and has been predicted. now, we're starting to see it, and it is going to get much, much, much uglier. >> it's a choice for these republicans. >> we actually saw lindsey right there with donald. of course, lindsey had the quote in 2016, if the republican party nominates donald trump, they will destroy themselves and they will deserve it. lindsey graham was right then. lindsey graham is right now. jen, i don't really, right now, see anybody in the field that can beat donald trump one-on-one if donald trump decides to run. >> no. >> desantis certainly can't do that. if a florida high school association is going around following his lead and checking the menstrual cycles of young women and he's doing all these other crazy things, he'll get outside of florida and people will be, like, "yeah, thanks, no, thanks, ronnie.

go home." i don't see anybody who can beat donald trump. yet, if somebody beats donald trump, he'll run as an independent. he's basically telling us this. >> he has to in order to get away from his legal woes. >> that's what he thinks, yeah. >> that's what he thinks. who can beat donald trump in the republican party right now? >> i mean, i totally agree with your assessment here, joe. i mean, look, donald trump, for whatever reason in this country, there's about a third of the country that is hard core with him. they're hard to shake from him, at least in this point in time. that's the challenge any of these other republicans have. i think it is interesting watching all these clips because he can't quite figure out how he wants to run against these people if they get in. for desantis, he made him dry, cry, which i don't believe that. i don't know who believes that. >> nobody. >> he wouldn't be here without him. nikki haley, doses of sexism in there, but also he said, "she called me, and i welcomed her in

the race." the interesting thing to me about that, joe and mika, is the more people who are in the republican primary who think donald trump is weak, who think they could beat him, the better it is for donald trump. because he has this hard core base of support that seems unshakable at this point. let's see. the more of them fighting amongst each other, the better for him. i agree with you on ron desantis and his insanity. that is very hard in a general election. i don't know that's imposs impossible in a primary. if it is desantis and trump, i don't know, maybe that's the best bet republicans have to take him out. a lot of people will get in. that's the challenge. >> we're already seeing republicans who have been critical of donald trump beginning to waiver in their criticisms. governor chris sununu who called trump crazy last year walked back the comments. >> do you commit to the gop nominee, whoever it is? >> absolutely. i'm a republican.

i'm going to support the republican nominee. i can guarantee they're getting than any of the democrats that would likely sit in the presidential seat. >> even if it's donald trump? >> yeah. i don't think it'll be donald trump, but, yeah, i'll support the republican nominee, to be sure. >> i think you did, at a dinner, call donald trump effing crazy. >> just jokes, governor sununu indicated. michael steel, this is part of the sequel in the movie where they go, it's happening again. we're seeing it happen again. donald trump is being invited back onto the radio shows, forgiven for his sins. people who criticized him saying, "if he is the nominee, i'll vote for him. he is better than the alternative." we've seen this movie before. >> i need a damn couch. i just need to just lie down from this crazy. i just -- you know, there is not

among them anyone who has the ability to stand up to this man and look him in the eye and say, "sit your ass down. you are done." not one. currently serving, formerly serving, who has the ability to shut this down. and, so, oh, yeah, i love this line, this crazy line that says, "well, yeah, i support the republican nominee." even if it's donald trump? "yeah, but i don't think it'll be donald trump." really? >> no. >> how do you think -- how does that math work? can we just all, the rest of us, just stop trying to follow and track this and think these people are, a, sane, b, going to do anything other than ultimately capitulate to donald

trump, and, c, focus on how we can move this country away from that. if it's a democratic nominee, an independent candidate, whoever else it is, you're not going to get that person out of this party at this time. it's just not going to happen. >> so then my question -- i mean, i always feel like, joe, sucking up never works. you have to be who you are. >> it never works. >> never works. >> and these guys are so pitiful. like, i'll support him, sort of, but i don't think he is going to, but i'll support him. sununu. >> come on, man. >> you were joking when you said he was crazy. you knew what you meant. you're walking it back pitifully. does a voter respect you for doing that? does a voter respect someone quivering behind the coattails of donald trump? >> no. >> like, what is the option for a solid republican who wants to

run for president when they are asked about the support for donald trump? do they have to appeal to trump's base? is that a must? >> first of all -- >> is that the way to do it? >> no, that's not the way to do it. let's quote bill clinton here, who said it is better to be strong and wrong than weak and right. donald trump, this is something that donald trump has understood all along. michael steel, let me open up to you. you were a public official, as well, been on the ballot. you know, it seems to me there is a way for republicans to say, i understand that a lot of people support donald trump. let me remind you all, though, donald trump said that his own vice president deserved hanging. donald trump said he supported the termination of the constitution of the united states of america. he said that on truth social, that he wanted to terminate the constitution of the united states of america. republicans, let me say, we have

to move beyond it because this is why we lost in 2017, '18, '19, '21 and '22. we'll lose in '24. if you voted for donald trump, i need your vote. i need your vote because we need to win. why can't they do something like that? what would your approach be, michael? >> so this would be my approach. so as katty aptly pointed out in the last segment, we're only talking about a third of the republican base. the fact that we act like the other two-thirds don't exist and they don't get to participate in a primary process. our primaries, joe, you know this, you know this firsthand, have roughly, what, 20% of all registered voters who can vote in a primary turn out to vote? there is a wide swath of voters

out there. you have primaries in which independents can become republicans to participate. democrats can change parties to participate. there are ways in which you can work your way, your campaign, through these primaries and crush the hell out of trump. but we get stuck in this mindset that believes, oh, his base is so vast and so big, they turn out, we lose. that is not necessarily true. if you have the strategy in place to activate and animate the rest of the base, making the case you just made. we're going to nominate someone who wants to tear up the constitution? we want to do that again? the arguments can be made. the strategies can be put in place, joe. but the party just sort of acquiesces to this notion that there is no way around this big, yellow boulder sitting in the middle of the road. >> yeah. >> and there is. >> well, there is.

also, you know, we love it -- we love talking about, oh, donald trump can't be beaten and everything. but let's bring in gene robinson. you know, gene, the thing i found campaigning, and we have our hands on a poll two wl two before, three weeks before my primary election. opponent was at 52% and i was at 14%. people said, well, that's the end. i said, we got him right where we want him. i bring that up only because, of course, i couldn't afford the poll. we had to figure out how to get the poll from somebody else. but i have seen people who have said, i am voting for candidate "a." see somebody else who shows strength and determination, and they go, you know, maybe not. >> they love honesty, too. >> the thing is, all they want -- i'm telling you, all they want is they want people to be strong, want them to be

direct, and i think in this case, if the republicans heard something new, a candidate that told the truth, and they did it in a strong way, i think they could move some of these donald trump supporters to somebody else if this person said to them, "let me show you the way we're going to win. it's not his way. if you love him, fantastic. fly your flag. i don't care. but vote for me because we have to beat the democrats." i think some of those trump voters would move if they had a strong candidate. but all of these republicans are going, oh, i love him. i hate him. i love you, i hate him. i don't know what to do. he's crazy. no, he's not. come on! >> nobody likes a wimp. you're cutting yourself off from the beginning. >> yeah. which of these potential candidates, potential republican candidates, do you have confidence in to do that, to do what you just said? to really appeal to voters who

have questions about trump, who may be tired of trump or who can be talked to, which of them can do that? >> i can't think of one. >> which can do it effectively? i'm not sure i've seen the candidate yet. i'm not sure it is desantis. for most republicans across the country, desantis is more of an idea. he is doing stuff in florida that we hear people in florida like. i don't know how well he plays on the national stage. i don't know if nikki haley can make that appeal that you just made, which requires separation from donald trump. i don't know if any of them really have what it takes to do that. so if they don't, then they're going to get steam rollered by this guy. if they do, then they can have a different outcome. but, you know, show me the candidate who you think really

has what it takes to go against trump. >> yeah. jen, just watching all this play out, watching all these potential adversaries talk about donald trump, it just shows you that they're not -- many of them are not up to the task of taking him on and may not get into the race because of what he represents in the party. >> right. >> let's look at it from the other side of it, from your experience working in the white house. what is joe biden thinking right now when he watches this as he considers whether to run? many believe he'll run again. what does he make of this as he thinks about who will be my opponent if i run again? >> well, i think, unquestionably, donald trump's participation in this race is a motivator for joe biden to be in the race. you know, he feels he beat him before. he did. this is part of his legacy, is defeating that guy. you know, i think if donald trump continues to be in the race and the front runner, i can't even imagine joe biden doesn't want to run against him. but all of this bickering in the republican party and the primary

right now is good for joe biden. he's about to give his state of the union address. he needs a reset away from the documents. that's what that gives an opportunity to do. and, you know, he can just continue being president. that is the biggest benefit of being the incumbent in a case like this. so, in his mind, it's like, you guys fight with each other. i'll be over here trying to get some things done for the american people. >> john heilemann, let's just be really blunt here as we end the segment. there's just not a better scenario for joe biden than donald trump winning the republican nomination again, is there? i mean, it is -- that is his ticket to re-election. >> well, i mean, there might be one better scenario, joe, which is the one we were laying out at the top of the block. which is, donald trump not winning the republican nomination and deciding he wants to run as an independent and tear the party into shreds. i mean, joe biden is blessed.

the man has the luck of the irish when it comes to donald trump. because it's kind of a heads, you win -- heads, i win, tails, you lose thing for him. trump becomes the nominee, and we all have learned now over time, painfully, that the man can't win a national election. he can't win a popular vote contest against probably any democrat, but certainly not joe biden. and threading that -- running through the eye of the needle there in the electoral colleges is getting to be tougher and tougher when you're as unpopular with large swaths of the country as donald trump. donald trump at the top of the republican ticket is a golden pathway for re-election for joe biden. but the other scenario now vividly suggesting itself, and i want to go back to chris sununu. a very smart man, popular man in a swing state like new hampshire. a guy who a lot of people think has national potential.sununu, doing, saying "i will support

whoever the republican nominee is, including donald trump." at the very moment when donald trump is saying he won't necessarily do the same and support whoever is the republican nominee if it is not him. where is the rreciprocity. whoa! just about knocked my camera over. look at that. i'm fine. >> couldn't see. >> i lost my balance here. >> we have video up. >> keep talking. we got video going. again, the thing is, the thing is, again, they should just write three things down and talk to the republican base. say, chris sununu should say, "listen, whether i like him is irrelevant. can he win a general election? the answer is no." just say, "hey, i got these two out of three things here. donald trump said mike pence deserved hanging. told his staff on january 6th he deserved hanging. donald trump wrote on his own social media platform that he was calling for the termination

of the united states constitution. two weeks before the 2020 election, he pressured his attorney general to arrest his political opponent because he thought he was going to lose the election." we're not even talking about everything that happened around january 6th. >> or saying out loud -- >> this guy can't win a general election. saying out loud? >> that he'll take dirt on a political rival from the leader of a foreign country, ukraine. it goes on, it goes on, the list goes on. >> he can't win. >> all right. fix your camera. >> he fixed his camera. see, he was weeping, and he knocked it over because he didn't want people to see it. >> my eyes got all watery, joe, because i was weeping about the glories of your presidency and how devoted i am to you forever and how grateful i am to be on the air. >> ew. >> the last thing i'll say, all of that is true. all of that is true.

the almost better scenario for joe biden is ron desantis becomes the republican nominee, and he has to run against not just joe biden but also donald trump at the same time. that splits -- that's another cakewalk for joe biden to re-election. donald trump's presence in the field, no matter what, works to joe biden's advantage. you know, again, heads that joe biden wins, tails, donald trump loses. he's got to be thanking his lucky stars that donald trump wants to stick around on the national stage. it's all good for joe biden. >> by the way, for people that are watching going, oh, my gosh, this is a left-wing, pro-biden, no, not really. i wouldn't say. >> we're talking about getting -- >> nobody here would say that joe biden would automatically win against chris sununu, that joe biden would automatically win against nikki haley, that joe biden would automatically win against ron desantis. we don't know that. but we do know this, if donald

trump is the republican nominee, he will lose georgia because he will lose the atlanta suburbs. he will lose pennsylvania because he will lose the philly suburbs. he will lose michigan because he will lose the detroit suburbs. we know donald trump will lose. we don't know that about ron desantis, nikki haley, mike pence, or any of the other republicans that are talking about running. >> but trump is proven. coming up, it is estimated -- >> it's what he does. >> you've got the list. it is estimated that 46% of all the guns in the world are here in the united states. congresswoman lauren boebert thinks that number should be higher. we'll show you what she said. also ahead, a live report from capitol hill on the heels of congresswoman ilhan omar being ousted from the house foreign affairs committee. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. research shows people remember ads with a catchy song. so to help you remember that

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a federal judge in wisconsin is allowing a wrongful death lawsuit against kyle rittenhouse and police officers to move forward. rittenhouse shot and killed two people, including anthony hubert, during a protest in wisconsin in 2020. hubert's father is accusing police officers of allowing for the dangerous situation, saying it violated his son's constitutional rights. the lawsuit also alleges rittenhouse conspired with police to cause harm to protesters. rittenhouse was 17 years old at the time of the shooting. he was acquitted on all charges in november 2021 after testifying he acted in self-defense, mika. republican congresswoman lauren boebert of colorado took to the house floor yesterday to defend the second amendment. she condemned a new atf mandate that requires gun owners to register any firearms that use stabilizing braces. boebert called to abolish the

agency, saying it is enacting a rule that functions like a law. she also encouraged the purchase of more guns. >> bureaucrats don't create laws, congress does. this rule functions like a law that congress never passed. atf, alcohol tobacco and firearms. in western colorado, we call that a fun weekend. but d.c. bureaucrats have used this agency to infringe on the rights of the american people. gun-free zones are the most dangerous places in our country. the second amendment is absolute, and it is here to stay. a recent report states that americans own 46% of the world's guns. i think we need to get our numbers up, boys and girls. >> congresswoman boebert was also part of an exchange during a meeting of the house natural

resources committee where democratic congressman jared huffman of california proposed an amendment to prohibit lawmakers from carrying firearms into the hearing room. take a look. >> how many members feel like they would need to carry a weapon into our committee hearings? one. >> i feel i need one everywhere here. >> everywhere? >> oftentimes, we are harassed in the hallways and walk alone. >> the gentleman hasn't yielded. >> loaded weapons, presumably? >> not an unloaded weapon. >> that's helpful to know, too. of course, we heard from reference to the fact that, you know, this amendment is not necessary because the rule prevents taking armed weapons around the capitol and into the house chamber. but we know there are members across the aisle who have tried to take loaded weapons into the house chamber. >> january 6th, i was following house rules. there's three places members of congress cannot carry a firearm. one is the house floors. i was abiding by the rules.

when i heard the doors shaking, i didn't know what was on the other side. it was the first time in many, many years that i have been unprotected. i was disarmed. not unarmed, disarmed, because i was not allowed to possess my firearm. >> my god. it's headache inducing, honestly. gene robinson -- by the way, the amendment failed in a party line vote. here, this woman is talking about january 6th. >> yeah. >> january 6th. her guy and her people, like, this was an insurrection to try and interrupt the process of the 2020 election. i don't even know where to begin. we have such violent stupidity. >> i know. it's crazy. so, in other words, she wishes she had her gun so she could shoot her people who were coming in to do what she wanted to do. >> i think that's what she said.

>> she just -- you know, she lives in some sort of weird, you know, firearms disneyland, where everybody has guns and everybody shoots everybody all the time. it's insane. it's just insane. she wants everybody to have more guns. somehow, that's supposed to be a good thing. we all know that every study, every statistic, every, you know, looking at other countries, look anywhere, and you have more guns, you have more shootings, more deaths. you have more mass shootings. you have more individual shootings. you have more gun suicides when you have more guns. she wants more of all of that. so this is crazy. but this is today's republican majority in the house. >> michael steele, i'm going back to you. we're dumping everything on you today. get you the big, soft couch.

>> i need the couch, baby. >> but it has to be said, given the context that congresswoman boebert put all of this into. at 8:30 in the morning on january 6th, 2021, she tweeted, quote, today is 1776. that was a tweet from lauren boebert. that gives you context of where she fell on the day and the events of january 6th. of course, it was the armed capitol police and d.c. metro police who saved the lives, perhaps, of many of those members of congress. >> yeah. >> what are we to make of this? i know it is one member of congress, and she gets perhaps more attention than she needs, but what do you make of this? >> well, stop giving her the attention. i've said this consistently for the last six or seven years. we need to stop engaging stupid. they're light entertainment at times, but when it gets serious, we need to be serious. the reality of it is, lauren

boebert, that you are in a protected space. there were armed security outside and inside the building. you didn't need a gun. and who were you going to shoot? what were you going to shoot at, right? and the idea that you felt unprotected just tells you what you think of the capitol hill police. it tells you what you think about the men and women who, every day, risk their lives for your stupid. all right. >> all right. >> so we need to understand and contextualize what we're dealing with here. we're dealing with people who are, a, unserious, b, wholly incompetent to serve in the offices that they hold, c, should be nowhere near, nowhere near authority, power or weapons. and the reality for us as citizens is to not just look at this and laugh at it and sort of blow by it, but actually take it

serious and un-elect it. coloradoans, you barely re-elected her. do you get it now? do you get it now? because this is what you sent to washington. and if there's more of that coming, what do you think this country is going to look like in two or four years? everybody is jack-loaded with guns walking through the hall of congress, and you don't like what another member says. then what? you're in a committee hearing. joe, you know these things get heated. what, you brandish your weapon to sort of change the tenor and tone of the conversation? what are we expecting going to happen here when these people are so jacked up to want to take the violent route? you know, so i don't know much more we can say, willie. i don't know. it's just -- this is our congress. >> i know. i mean, we're saying this with

all seriousness and without trying to -- i mean, it's hard. you have to say it like it is. we have a stupidity problem on the republican side, literal stupidity, or something worse. then, jen psaki, stupidity with a violent edge to it. i mean, they want to have loaded -- this is -- what has become of republicans in congress? >> i mean, this issue is enraging. can tell you as a mother of two little kids, including one who goes to a public school, where they just walk in and if you have people like lauren boebert out there who are saying everybody should have guns everywhere, it is giving license for crazy people to go after innocent people. >> yeah. >> i mean, that is what is so horrifying about this. when we're talking about the rise in violence, the targeting of members, the targeting of people just for being a part of civic society. >> yes. >> lauren boebert is promoting that. that is what she is doing right there with the guns. how she's talking about violence

and arming herself. you know, i think this issue is so enraging because the majority, as a number of people already said, the majority of the country, and i mean, like, 60%, 70%, 80% of people think there should be universal background checks, don't think people should be able to purchase assault weapons. that's what the country thinks. why is there not a change? the nra. they've spent $100 million since 2012, or more, funding donald trump, republican candidates, ted cruz. people are still scared of them. until that changes, it is going to be hard to change the politics in washington. that is a sad state of affairs as a mother of two little kids who are innocently trotting out in the world every day. >> yeah. i just want to put quotes around lauren boebert, a little frame around this incredible statement, where she talks about january 6th and needing a loaded weapon on the house floor to protect herself.

from her people. she needed a loaded weapon that day. think about that. they're using now january 6th as their argument to be bringing loaded weapons into congress. this is where we're at when it comes to republicans in congress. this is why it is very difficult to have the conversations that used to be had in washington in years past. where opposite sides of separate parties would love to come together and have the friction that joe was talking about, the debate that joe was talking about, that makes us better. this doesn't make us better. this makes one party stupider and lose. so many times, that they may lose their party which, quite frankly, the two-party system was valuable. that debate was valuable. instead, right now, it's been dumbed down in a violent way.

coming up, at least 200,000 and counting. that's the new estimate for how many russian soldiers have died or have been wounded while fighting in ukraine. we'll be joined by a former cia officer for more insight on the state of putin's army. and the suspected chinese spy balloon spotted over montana. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪♪ over the last 100 years, lincoln's witnessed a good bit of history. even made some themselves. makes you wonder... what will they do for an encore?

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>> translator: we can feel this. i believe that it has already started, fully or not fully.

we will see that in the nearest weeks. >> ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy speaking yesterday about what he says is a renewed russian offensive in the eastern part of his country. this comes as western officials say vladimir putin is growing increasingly desperate for a battlefield victory, which is leading to a surge in deaths among his troops. in a speech yesterday from the former city of stalingrad, putin ignored the mass casualties in his army and, again, raised the spector of using nuclear weapons in his war on ukraine. let's bring in former cia officer mark, former security analyst. let's start right there. what is zelenskyy seeing? what are intelligence officials here in the united states seeing that leads them to believe that putin may be preparing for this two-pronged, massive assault on ukraine? >> well, willie, good morning. clearly, there is intelligence that suggests there is, you know, a russian offensive that's

coming. i think you saw cia director bill burns make a trip to kyiv recently to brief zelenskyy on this and discuss kind of the ukrainian plans. what is fascinating to me yesterday about putin's speech is as follows. you know, he is harking back to nostalgia about the great sacrifices the soviet union made in world war ii. no doubt, there was a staggering loss of life there. but, in essence, he is telegraphing to the russian people, and it is interesting because that's a domestic audience of his that he has to keep in tact, but he is telegraphing that hard times are coming. we're worried about ukraine, sure, but with the casualty figures of 200,000, putin knows more is coming. there is advanced western weaponry en route. we're in for a pretty bloody conflict. but on putin's side, he knows that there is going to be, you know, thousands more russian casualties. he's telling the russian people to get ready for it. >> so, different topic before we get to your piece on the cia, about this surveillance balloon that's looming over the

continental united states, apparently. reports from the defense department yesterday that there were conversations about whether they could or should shoot it out of the sky. they decided not to because of the damage that might be left below when it fell to the earth. as someone who worked inside the cia, what do you make of a chinese surveillance balloon slowly floating over the united states right now? >> well, first of all, i think washington lost its collective mind yesterday on this. i would just, you know, try to remind everybody, espionage is the second oldest profession. the chinese do spy on us. i do spy on us. this goes back to maybe cold war worry about something kind of tangible looking up at us. there's a balloon over montana. the joke in my household is are they getting a preview of the next season of "yellowstone." they have spy satellites that look at the united states.

christopher wray said they open another counter intelligence investigation every 12 hours. washington has gone crazy. the idea of shooting this down, maybe that's not a great idea. i don't think it should affect secretary of state's trip to beijing either. we make this seriously but the outcry in washington was crazy. they blame joe biden for this balloon over montana. >> the department of defense was clear that this is not a direct threat to the united states. let's get to the piece in "the washington examiner." five questions congress must urgently and again ask the cia. why does the cia need an evaluation? >> yesterday was groundhog day and as i was thinking of where the cia needs to be in 2023 an

onward, many questions in terms of the mission, structure and people at cia have been asked and discussed by previous directors and on the hill but never resolved. a lot of times we talk on the show about the performative theater. but traditionally the house perm innocent select committee on intelligence and in the senate have been serious bodies and have to be change agents here. are we hiring the right people? what about training and retention? again, espionage is second oldest profession. we have to get this right. this is a call that the congressional oversight committees perhaps they can be effective change agents.

>> let's start with the first one getting at the foundation of the cia. what is the core function of the cia right now? >> sure. they do three things. it is human intelligence collection, covert action and then analysis. bill burns two years ago said foundationally the cia has to steal secrets. what does that mean? actually we have this explosion in open source but we need a penetration of vladimir putin's inner circle and in iran and with that in mind knowing that or assuming that's the foundational requirement of the krair is the cia structured correctly to ensure that we go forward on that human intelligence collection?

in 2015 there were reforms for a good reason presented by then director john brennan and many felt they went too far and the operational side was defanged. they took the teeth out. my call is for congress to act as a change agent to force a deep dive on this. critically important when we have adversaries like russia, china, iran with capable services. >> people read the piece. i'll ask you now that we are 21 1/2 years after 9/11, how is the cia's mission different than a decade ago? >> what a great question. on september 12th we were solely focused on the counter terrorism mission. i remember waking up that day

and i feel we were successful to protect americans and then took our eye off the ball and have to pivot back. there's a case to be made for the conflict in ukraine with a blend of two. we need officers who speak russia, evade surveillance detection and we need officers who are capable of working in a conflict zone. bullets are flying are comfortable operating there. the world has evolved and going back to congress it is incumbent on congress and optimistic call to ensure that the cia is well positioned in 2023 and beyond. >> let's hope they listen to you. marc, great to see you. the piece is up now. thank you so much. >> thanks.

>> mika? >> give us a sense of the overall health -- the ability for congress to get anything done especially coming to oversight. so many different investigations to use their coined term witch hunts. is there a balance with oversight? >> yeah. there absolutely is if we were operating in a sane congress. looking back to ten years ago, there was consistently good oversight of both parties why good questions to be asked about pandemic spending or about operations happening overseas but the risk here for the republicans and the witch hunt is that they can very easily topple over the line. right? spend too many resources, hours. make this an absurd hunt to

impeach. i think they talked about 40 officials to impeach. they can cross that line easily. there are lessons to be learned from the past when they did this and turned politically wrong for that. that's the risk and there's good oversight but the vast majority is insane witch hunt impeaching people in a way that the american public will be like what about what you need to do to make my life better. >> thank you. steal ahead, republicans have stripped a third democratic lawmaker of their seat on a house panel. we'll have the latest reporting on that. we'll be right back.

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beautiful shot of washington, d.c. welcome back to "morning joe." it's just about the top of the third hour of "morning joe" on this friday, february 3rd.

happy friday, everybody. >> happy friday. >> are you happy? >> happy friday, everybody. oh yeah. how about you? >> we are doing fine. >> joe's complaining. he has a little jet lag. >> i don't. >> he does. >> we're ramping up. it is impossible for jack and me to enjoy the friday waiting for sunday today. >> ah! >> what do you have this sunday. >> it is too far for us. >> i'm ready. who do you have? >> 48 hours away. fill the time with some movies or whatever you have to do. >> wow. >> who do i have? the interview this weekend is the great salma hayek. >> oh my god! >> cool oes and smartest and most fun people to talk to i have had on the show.

she willed the movie "frieda" to happen. got the director to do it. raised the money for it and nominated for an academy award. she's so much more than. she is a producer and just a blast to sit and have a conversation with. that's this sunday on "sunday today." >> so cool. i can't wait to see that. you're welcome. >> for what? >> what i told you 15 years ago. >> she makes stuff up. >> get out? >> you know what i told you. i said to willie that you are so talented that you're going to have your own network show. >> that is true. that is true. that is true. >> i said it. >> it happened. >> in the first months of "morning joe." >> better than what she said. i see gel time in your future.

>> she wasn't wrong about that. >> i knew talent when i saw it. >> you are the best. >> speaking of -- wait. >> bring in john heilemann and eugene robinson. we'll ask them what they have planned this weekend. >> i have no big plans this weekend except, of course, "sunday today." >> yeah! with willie geist. >> counting down the hours. other than that, that's -- all points to willie's show. >> you know -- >> it does. >> what about you john heilemann? >> i can't disclose the terms of my parole. i'm sorry. >> i totally understand that. you know, willie one thing i'm excited about this weekend other than "sunday today" is, you know, we grew up watching the pro bowl and so boring because

everybody was going at half speed. this flag football pro bowl they're doing with the manning brothering both sides, i think it will be a blast. i think it's going to be a lot of fun. it was a really smart move by the nfl. i'm looking forward to seeing the pro bowl. >> as you say effectively a touch football game anyway. they blow the whistle before a tackle. a passing drill basically. to capitalize on the success of the manning brothers' show this year. let them be the captains of opposite teams. play flag football like the rest of us. it's a great idea. >> it is a fantastic idea. speaking of weekend plans, somewhere in midtown the

helicopter is waiting for donny deutsch likely going to the hamptons. >> it is chilly out there particularly this weekend. the folks at palm beach calling my name. not so far from jupiter, by the way. be prepared. >> yeah, yeah. >> nice being tight there. >> the stroller doesn't work anymore. >> you gave me advice 15 years ago. something to do with a ten-foot restraining order. we'll begin with former president trump opening up new lines of attacks against some potential 2024 republican rivals. speaking yesterday trump commented on florida governor ron desantis. >> ron desantis got elected because of me. he had nothing. leaving the race. he begged me, begged me for an

endorsement. as soon as i gave that endorsement, he was running against adam putnam. he had $40 million in cash. i believe 40. and he was up in the poll massively. not even catchable. he said if you endorse me i'll win and there were tears coming down from his eyes. >> such a lie. >> one of many, many, many, many. >> sure, sure. sir, sir. tears. >> i told her she should follow her heart. i put it up. i would not run.

she is an ambitious person. i said, you know what? nikki, if you want to run you go head and run. she's gone around publicly saying i'll never run against our president. i'll never run. nikki suffers from something that's a tough thing to suffer from. she is overly ambitious. >> really? >> women i guess in donald trump's mind aren't allowed to be ambitious. >> not at all. >> and then repeat of 2016, trump wouldn't say whether he would support the eventual 2024 presidential nominee. let's watch him say that. >> if you are not the nominee will you support whoever the gop nominee? >> it would depend. same answer i gave in 2016. first question asked by bret.

asked two questions. it would have to depend on the nominee. >> won't do that. he'll split the republican party before endorsing somebody that's not him. donny deutsch, donald trump is always brand down. in terms of with inning the republican nomination looking at how weak these other people are being and taking back any tough criticism of trump you have to say just in winning the republican nomination right now donald trump is brand up because the other republicans are still scared of their own shadows. they don't understand the only way you beat a bully is punch them in the face. >> and do something else.

you stand up and you say, look, what the americans is about is winning. okay? donald trump is fine. i like donald trump. donald trump can't win. he's a loser. i am going to bring you to the promised land. that's the only thing you can say. this ridiculousness of them bowing in front of this false god is just -- is actually quite pathetic. but the strategy is basically you don't have to completely diss donald trump. donald trump served a purpose and cannot win. desantis who i don't care for has the best story in that he is a proven winner. whether you like or don't like the politics can stand on the platform of winning. donald trump had the time and the place. i don't bestow any negativity on him but i can win.

that's the platform, a winning ticket. >> again i don't think people will do it. i don't know that desantis will do it. these republicans are -- >> why are they so scared? the guy has like seven legal cases against him right now on top of everything else. >> some republicans don't want donald trump to be the next president or the next nominee. you can cross donald trump. whether you like him or not, the guy loses. he' a loser. he put us in a permanent position on the defense and will lose again. why can't they just say that? >> look. if they hope to beat him they have to say it and have the courage to go up against him and say this guy is a loser. i'm a winner.

i'm not seeing that now. i'm not sure i will see it. the problem they face is that there is a chunk of the republican party, probably 30%, whatever, that has a personal, feels a personal connection with donald trump that it does not feel with ron desantis or with nikki haley or maybe else right now. if you break that connection what you have to do to probably win the nomination you have to go mono-e-mono with donald trump. as long as the dynamic continues it's better for trump. >> let's bring in special correspondent at vanity fair" molly jones fast. you discuss how donald trump's campaign is to lash opposite of

the one that got him the white house in 2016. much to the collective horror of the republican donor class and all decent people everywhere trump is still very much in the game. trump isn't barred from returning for office after inciting an insurrection. while allen weisselberg and many stormed the u.s. capitol on trump's behalf have faced jail time the former president hasn't been indicted yet. trump is going to try to pretend he is not the subject of multiple criminal investigations and lawsuits. luckily for trump the mainstream media has a bias toward normalcy so the guy who is responsible

for eroding democracy, being found to be the single largest driver of covid disinformation and ending his reign with a failed coup attempt gets treated the same as jeb bush? trump's baching on the old gore vidal adage. we are the united states of amnesia. we learn nothing and remember nothing. >> donald trump is a guy that told staff members that mike pence deserved to be hanged on january 6. >> too many things to remember. >> the guy that wrote on his own social platform the united states constitution needed to be quote terminated. donald trump is the same guy who sat and stared at the riots while his children, his friends and every one of his staff members in the white house begged him to stop it and he did

nothing. some things are hard to ferlt. >> i think there's a bias towards normalcy in mainstream reporting so it ends up being very tough to put the caveats in writing about a campaign stop so i think that trump will try to use that as much as possible. >> donny deutsch, how do you report on this? it seems obvious when you have a guy that called for the termination of the united states constitution, called for it, the termination of the united states constitution, you can't treat him like he's any other candidate. >> people in jail for him. >> she is right. everybody's going to jail. >> for him! in the name of him! >> everybody's going to jail. how do you pretend he's any other candidate? >> you don't. you don't. i think the thing that hit me,

the sound bites of trump lately, he seems tired and beat up. seems toothless and fangless. there's something beyond the fact that the act is old he seems beat up, weathered, almost defeated. the words are there but if you look at the mannerisms. the chest is not puffed out. he feels -- he just feels like yesterday's tired weekend news. he's gone through january 6 and the potential indictments. he just doesn't look like the same -- whether you loved or hated him he doesn't have that same strength for lack of a better word. donald trump without strength is nothing. >> there's a weird vibe around him. john heilemann, the night he made his announcement to run for

president again. the kids wouldn't show up. >> it is like they're looking at the audience and uncomfortable. maybe very small or i don't know what. >> graham looked like a hostage. the gr. it is like a wake. no. it is just again, everything, political wake. everything seems strained and weak. i don't know. maybe pulls it off again. my god, donny is right. he's lost more than a step. >> i think that's right. i think, joe, looking at the way republicans of older vintage

look at donald trump, a member of the bush family but long time at fox news for a long time and writes a smart newsletter and talked about the conventional wisdom is what we say about trump and made an astute point about part of the way to take on trump is take him on as a republican and go man to man against him and be able to beat him and stand up to the bully. but the thing the republican party is lacking over the course of the trump era is a sense of optimism, hope, those reagan qualities, forward looking. that stuff that worked for both parties, bill clinton and barack obama or ronald reagan.

that -- the party has become so mired in grievance and anger that a way maybe to take trump on as a republican is to stand up and say that gold watch thing. thank you for your service for one term. you know what? he is not just a loser but mired in back ward looking grievance and anger. >> and legal woes. >> a city on the hill and try to go back to some of those kind of what have been winning formulas for both parties in the past about the voters, future and optimism and break that cycle in the republican party which is so dark and angry and grievance laden. ron desantis is doing the opposite thing. that might be part of the way that a republican if they can

find it in them to try to make that kind of contrast on optimism and the thematic and the substantive to set the person apart. >> think about these republicans bowing to trump and not able to stand up for themselves declaring the potential runs for the presidency. this man donald trump is drowning in legal woes. think about how -- if one of them goes badly for him, if he is indicted or arrested the people will be on the wrong side of history. what are the khans of inciting an insurrection is a bad thing and might have a bad thing for that? what about holding classified documents and violating a subpoena? do these republicans not see --

do they not hear that phone call he made to the secretary of state? get me 781 more -- i need a few more votes. >> they don't care. >> there is possibly a consequence for that. >> they don't care about that. they haven't cared about that. they don't care about it now. i do though want to follow up on something very important, though. that john heilemann said to donny deutsch. that is it's about the future, man. politics is about the future. telling people what you are going to do to make their lives better. people watch this show that are progressive probably hate ronald reagan. ronald reagan talked about the future. he always talked about -- he

always ended the speeches saying that i believe that america's greatest days lie ahead. he was optimistic about immigrants. bring them to america. when we stop bringing immigrants to america we stop being a vital nation and we die as a nation. there was again whether you agreed with reagan or not he had policies, think tanks. heritage foundation before becoming a back ward looking reactionary thing it is right now, you had the young people going there, talk about a conservative future. what programs to be implemented. this republican party, donald trump's republican party is so pessimistic. i had a friend yesterday who worked for reagan! spent his adult life talking

about reagan. he is a 2023 trump conservative. so pessimistic. i wrote him back yesterday and i was like, dude, i'm sorry. you may have worked for the guy but i'm an optimistic conservative. maybe i'm 40 years late but you are negative about everything. rude about everybody. you insult the first lady of the united states uses doctor. just like dr. henry kissinger. you are rude to the people. you are backward looking. saying that we should let the russians overrun ukraine. it is so negative. this is a recipe for continued losing. >> nasty. >> like they don't -- john's so right. they don't talk about the future anymore. they talk about the past. they talk about resentiment and

in florida they're talking about young girls menstrual cycles. they are whacked out of their heads and have no future in american politics unless they change course. >> you know, what john said bridge back to the winning. once you say -- the springboard, hey look, donald trump is a loser. this is a strategy we are losing. i'm about winning and that's about the future and this and better wages. we are not going to take the health care away. not cutting the defense spending and winning is this. you kind of take the negative of donald trump and spin it into optimism. like an a-b strategy. i hate to agree with heilemann. i agree with him. >> nothing mild about what he

takes. i think we all know that. molly, talking about looking back wards, republicans are saying now they want to double down on legislation that will make life even harder for women. they took away a right that americans had for 50 years. it costs them the midterm election. their response? let's make things even harder for 10-year-old girls who get raped in ohio, for 14-year-old girls raped by uncles in ohio, by women who could die on the operating table and harder for them in the coming years. that's more than rhetoric. that's actually destroying women's lives. >> yeah. you are seeing this. i did reporting on this. in the southern states women

have miscarriage unable to get treatment with these anti-choice bans. you have women who are not trying to get abortions but medical treatment. pills for miscarriages and can't get them and women all over the country having troubles with getting miscarriages treated. we are a country with a high -- for a wealthy a high mortally rate. the ban is not on a full year and haven't seen completely the affects of this. it's very scary. i think the problem with this republican party is they don't believe anything. they have no platform. the thing is no. they are trying now to bring down the credit of the country. the debt ceiling. it is a party of no, no, no, no,

no. >> really. >> cruel, cruel, cruel, cruel. >> about abortion. republicans should understand. there are a lot of men out there, a lot of men who consider themselves pro-life that are now looking at the extreme things that have been passed in state legislatures going whoa, no. again, we keep going back to the focus group in atlanta with donald trump supporter who considered himself pro-life saying this is none of my business. just like again i want to go back to the thing in florida where florida high school association is talking about making young girls report on the menstruation cycles because of some phony culture war. it is grotesque what they are doing. >> by the way, talking about the legal consequences trump could

face the call to the secretary of state asking for 11,780 votes. specifically. i'm thinking there might be consequences for that. >> i think there will be. >> maybe. >> yeah. >> definitely the possibility. thank you all very much. >> john, stay mild. >> willie -- president biden and kevin mccarthy said wednesday's meeting was positive and both democrats and republicans confirm they stand firm in the positions. speaking for the democrats senate majority leader chuck schumer said this yesterday. >> jeffries, chuck schumer, the president have the exact same position. which is, we should pass the debt ceiling clean. that's where we are at. >> meanwhile speaker kevin mccarthy had this to say. >> i'm very clear.

we don't pass a clean debt ceiling here without a form of spending reform. there will not be a clean one. we'll get spending reforms. i believe you have to lift the dead ceiling but not without changing the behavior. he said he'll call me to set up the next meeting. we should not wait five months. let's not put america through turmoil. right? >> let's bring in sahil kapur with new reporting on a spending cut republicans are considering. what are they looking at? are democrats, is the white house willing to negotiate on this? >> reporter: i have spent weeks asking them about the spending to cult and first time they identify unspent covid money. let's put the numbers on the

screen here. more than $4 trillion since the start of the pandemic authorized in covid money and a big portion is not spent. $500 billion is not spent and about $150 billion roughly of that unobligated. not contractually obligated. this is what the republicans see to include in a debt limit bill. should be very much on the table. congressman mike kelly said this is a way to make cuts or reduce the deficit without hurting people and low-hanging fruit. this is not going to come close to balancing the budget as many conservatives want but a start. if i'm thinking several steps ahead the way they tend to end over the last 12 years or so this is what republicans can

claim as a concession and the white house and democrats can say this is not a real concession that money is not spent and president biden at the same time is trying to take credit to turn the page on the pandemic. keep your eyes on this sweet spot to satisfy the red lines. all of this comes in the midst of a slow start to congress. it is the seinfeld congress because the show about nothing. the house took five days to elect a speaker. they have struggled to pass messaging bills like on the border. fighting about guns in committees. battling over the pledge of allegiance. the majority party tweeted the wrong pledge. gerry connolly, he predicts one of the least productive congresses in modern history and

blames it on the dysfunctionality of an unstable majority. the house as well. the month of january took three roll call votes compared to dozens in the month of january for previous congresses. put the quote from jon thune saying this is certainly an incredibly slow start. there is not a lot going on. if we zoom out the big things that congress will have to do this year to keep the lights on and government functions, appropriations, the debt limit and the one anecdote to this inaction began when committees got set up. the senate judiciary committee is moving a package of 40 biden nominated judges. democrats now have 51 seats in the senate and can move judges quickly and they expect to beat

former president trump's number of 200 judges over biden's term. >> republicans laser focused on whether to carry a gun into the natural resources committee. sahil, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," what we are learning about a suspected chinese spy balloon over montana. plus, we'll hear from democrats on the defense of congresswoman ilhan omar after she was usaed by republicans. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. prevent mig. you can't always prevent what's going on outside... that's why qulipta® helps what's going on inside. qulipta® gets right to work. in a 3-month study, qulipta® significantly reduced monthly migraine days and the majority of people reduced them by 50 to 100%. qulipta® blocks cgrp a protein believed to be a cause of migraines. qulipta® is a preventive treatment

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this morning we are following a number of high stakes developments with china. the lead in "the new york times" is u.s. aims to deter china with greater military presence in philippines why this as secretary of state blinken is due to visit champion on sunday

expected to meet with president xi jinping. it is the first by an american secretary of state in six years and comes amid rising tensions between the two nations. against that backdrop, the spy drama that the pentagon is nervously following for a number of days now. right now a spy balloon believed to have been sent by china is flying over the united states. travelers on a commercial plane spotted it on wednesday as it hovered over billings, montana. >> it started in alaska. aleutian islands, alaska. came down through canada and crossing the united states in montana. montana sounds kind of like a random start. >> it's making the way. >> yes. >> the pentagon since confirmed

saying yesterday that it was tracking and monitoring the balloon. but declined to say where it was currently located. a senior white house source tells nbc news they are confident it was sent by china but the administration has not said so official. president biden was briefed and followed the recommendation of the advisers that the balloon not be shot out of the sky for concern of those on the ground but the white house said it acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information. china is not admitting to sending the balloon and working to learn more about the situation. the country quote always abides by international law and has no intention of infringing on

territory. willie? >> for more detail let's bring in national security and military correspondent courtney kube. wow. listening to the details and looking at the history this happens from time to time. there are balloons floating around looking down on the united states. sometimes from china specifically and within range of being shot down but the defense department decided not to do that. can you explain how often this happens and where the balloon might be now? >> this happened two other times in the history and past administrations. the difference about this one causing more concern is the balloon, the aerial surveillance assets come near the u.s. this one flew as you can see from the map from the aleutians

through canada and into mth empty and in the united states several days. that's what they are more concerned about it. you mentioned it was in montana. not far from an air force base with intercontinental ballistic missiles. now as far as we know it was never closer than 200 miles but the balloon is still flying over the u.s. and we don't know where it is at this point. so that's one of the things. you mentioned also the potential to be shot down. this raised a level of concern on wednesday lloyd austin in manila convened a meeting. austin called them together with a meeting. middle of the night in the philippines and talked about the potential track for this, coming

and going. the potential intelligence collection capabilities they believe to be minimal. and they even brought in some aircraft, surveillance and f-22 fighter jets with the potential to bring it down. to look at it and the potential to shoot it down. ultimately they decided that given the fact it didn't have a ton of collection capability and the debris field to create on the ground they made a decision to continue to monitor and track it. that's where they landed. president biden agreed with that decision and according to a senior defense official they are monitoring this on a minute by minute basis and maintaining the ability and the decision making space to take it down if need be. >> all right. nbc's courtney kube, thank you.

strange. >> yeah. katty, this comes amid a backdrop of rising tensions between the u.s. and china. there's some cross currents. secretary of state antony blinken invited to meet with president xi. the first high ranking member of the biden administration to do that. lloyd austin, secretary of defense going to the philippines. challenging china's expansion. beefing up the defense with the countries in the region. it is interesting the blinken meeting with xi. there's backdrop of drama. >> there is a backdrop of drama

here and resolution amongst america's allies in the south pacific area. australians wondering whether to play both sides of the china-u.s. kind of competition if you like have opted to be in the u.s. camp. philippines look like they're doing the same. tony blinken goes to china with a strong hand to limit china's movements in the south china sea but what i'm hearing from people that deal with china in the business community is relieved there's any contact happening. in the covid lockdown and aggressive to foreign companies in china there's a total breakdown in communication between this white house and

officials in china. the fact that blinken is going for a high level meeting, i think that will be quite a relief to american business men, business people investing in china. >> it may be a step in the right direction. china has had a brutal two, three, four years and self inflicted. damage to china's economy and society has been self inflicted. we'll see if this is a beginning of a new chapter for them beyond covid and try to move away from the authoritarian approach. >> we'll talk about this and the developments overnight in ukrainian. the latest from washington

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russian president vladimir putin is warning the u.s. and allies that moscow cannot be defeated in ukraine. it came yesterday in a speech to mark the anniversary of the society union triumph in the battle of stalingrad. >> 200,000 russian troops have been killed. u.s. officials say moscow's sending recruits to the front lines that are poorly trained, some pulled straight out of prison resulting in hundreds of troops wiped out daily. >> with us now retired four star admiral james starvidas. none of us could have ever

imagined that one year in that russia's casualty count would be 200,000. and by the way, that may be a conservative estimate. now "the times" goes on to say that putin is able to keep the head down and keep fighting this war. those of us who remember how afghanistan ended not so sure of that. there comes a point even in russian society, there came a point in soviet society where the mothers said enough a ten soviet leadered had no point but to listen. >> interesting. >> to put that number in comparison to 200,000 casualties in less than 1 year of war to put that in a context, in 20 years of war in iraq and

afghanistan, 20 years, the u.s. tragically had 7,000 killed in action. here we are approaching between 100,000 and 200,000. my view, that's unsustainable. my fact set would include the fact that the last time putin called up a draft a few months ago between 200,000 and 300,000 young military age russians left the country. they are in eastern europe. they are anywhere but inside vladimir putin'seurope, anywher inside vladimir putin's russia. i think he's going to have a hard time sustaining this going forward. i will close on this note before we celebrate too much. putin mentioned stalingrad because in a year of combat, about a million russians were killed. so he will like drawing that comparison and he will reach

into russian literature and pint outlooks like one day in the life of ivan. russia, as mika and her family knows, can be a very difficult, very hard opponent. so, yeah, the trend lines are going against putin at the moment in that land war, but we need to continue to watch him and above all provide the ukrainians the material they need to push back on the next wave. coming up, it's the first friday of the month. that means an important new reading on the economy. the january jobs report this hour. y jobs report this hour i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪

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dangerously cold. >> you know, mika, sometimes i like to go up to mt. washington. >> no, you don't. >> and do an arctic plunge this time of year. so mt. washington right now, it's minus 29. isn't that in new hampshire/vermont area? and mt. washington, it feels like minus 79 right now. it is going to be frigid this weekend, to say the least. record lows. well, lows that haven't been seen in decades. speaking of decades, we have breaking news right now. here's the projected temperatures this weekend. windchill minus 6, minus 8, minus 13, minus 24 in maine, going to feel like minus 54.

i felt that a couple days waiting at a bus stop in upstate new york. not a lot of fun. as far as breaking news, the u.s. economy added 517,000 jobs last month. this economy is so resilient. the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, the lowest rate since 1969, the lowest rate in 53 years. we have interest rates that continue going up. you can't keep this economy down. the resilience, again, just remarkable. >> we'll have andrew ross sorkin here. we will have the latest on yesterday's dramatic house floor debate. plus, an update on a story we've

been following all week, the missing monkeys. >> you're obsessed with these dallas monkeys. >> the monkeys that were stolen from the dallas zoo, they found them in a closet of a church community house and they're back at the zoo now. it appears police have a suspect in custody. >> what about the missing monkeys in louisiana? >> i don't know. >> alex, do you have anything about the monkeys in louisiana? >> i don't. but i have a utica missing monkey case. >> this has been a "morning joe" tradition for at least one day. this is the utica, new york, monkey cam. it is 3 degrees. >> they're snuggled up, hiding because somebody is stealing them. >> let's go from monkeys to

balloons. >> on a more serious note, the spy drama the pentagon has been nervously following for a number of days now. right now, a spy balloon believed to have been sent by china is flying over the united states. nbc news national security and military correspondent courtney kube has the latest. >> tensions are rising between the u.s. and china over a suspected chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northern u.s. for the past few days. >> it's been stationary for about the last 35 minutes. >> reporter: this footage in billings, montana, wednesday, the same day the pentagon said the suspected spy balloon passed over the area near a u.s. military base, home to intercontinental ballistic missiles and defense officials say the balloon is still over the u.s., but decline to say where it is now. >> the u.s. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive

information. >> reporter: military officials say they looked at options, including shooting the object down out to have sky. ultimately they came to an agree if they were to do that, it would create a debris field that would put people on the ground potentially at risk. a spokesperson says china is a responsible country that acts in accordance with international law and has no intention to violate any country's air space. some calling this balloon incident a provocation. montana congressman ryan zinke tweeting, shoot it down. house speaker kevin mccarthy calling for a briefing for the gang of eight, the lawmakers charged with reviewing the most sensitive intelligence information. the president was briefed, but concurred they didn't need to shoot the surveillance balloon down. >> i asked about montana.

that seems awfully random. it's not random. icbms are there, military base is there. >> it might appear random. i understand what you're trying to say. it's not random to our national security community. >> it is not. the discovery of this high altitude surveillance balloon over montana comes just days before secretary of state antony blinken is due to visit china. >> very awkward. this two-day visit, which starts on sunday, is the first by an american secretary of state in six years. blinken is expected to meet with president xi jinping. >> china says that the balloon in the u.s. was actually a civilian, quote, airship, used for research. used for research right over military bases with icbms.

fascinating. it's a fascinating time in u.s./china relations. there hasn't been a meeting with any upper tier biden official with the chinese. antony blinken at the same time lloyd austin had big news out of the philippines yesterday, at the same time we were finding out about this surveillance balloon over montana from china. what should we expect from the blinken/xi meeting? >> this is pretty significant for all the reasons you said, joe, which is that there hasn't been a meeting like this in six years. it is at a very high level. there's not many higher levels than the secretary of state. the resistance to doing this for some time, at least in the biden administration, has been that the chinese have this history of

doing meetings and dialogues just to do meetings and dialogues where they won't actually move anything forward. it gives the presentation of sanity without any progress being made. this is a clear indication of the significance of this issue. obviously in the indo-pacific the areas around china, the potential fears of the threat to taiwan and other islands in that area. and also the importance of a national security team within the administration because of all those components. china and the threat of china, the rise of china, the power of china is an issue that hasn't received a ton of public attention in the last years, because there's been so much going on. but it is a huge topic happening in the situation room, in meetings in the defense department and the state department. i bet it's going to be a dominant issue for the years ahead too. now to washington politics

where democratic congresswoman ilhan omar has been removed from her seat on the house foreign affairs committee after a bitter party line vote yesterday. she's the third democratic member stripped of a committee assignment by the new republican majority this year. joining us with the latest is garrett haake. >> reporter: they say the vote to remove congresswoman omar was about accountability for her past anti-semitic comments, most of which came in 2019. the democrats call this hypocrisy. they say the gop has looked the other way when their own members have made anti-semitic and hateful comments. they called yesterday's vote pure political revenge. respect ilhan omar off the house foreign affairs committee this morning after a bitter battle on the house floor thursday. >> i didn't come to congress to be silent. i came to congress to be their voice. my leadership and voice will not

be diminished if i am not on this committee for one term. >> reporter: republicans united in voting to remove the minnesota democrat from her committee seat over since deleted tweets and comments seen as anti-semitic, critical of israel and appearing to down play 911. >> as a new york representative, to hear the representative belittle to try to diminish the worst terrorist attack on united states soil on september 11th, 2021, as some people did something, that is unacceptable. >> reporter: democrats rallying to omar's defense ahead of the vote. >> representative omar certainly has made mistakes, but what's going to take place on the floor today is not a public policy debate.

it's not about accountability. it's about political revenge. >> reporter: revenge, democrats argue, for bipartisan votes in the last congress to remove two republican members, marjorie taylor green and paul gosar. >> i had a member of the republican caucus threaten my life and the republican caucus rewarded him with one of the most prestigious committee assignments in this congress. i didn't get a single apology when my life was threatened. thank you. >> reporter: speaker mccarthy following his earlier move to block adam schiff and eric swalwell from returning to their committees. mccarthy went onto say yesterday he hopes to revamp how members are removed from committees in the future to try to provide

more due process in what's become a purely political action. democrats see members like marjorie taylor green who compared president biden to hitler and paul gosar restored to multiple committee assignments in this new congress. >> one of congresswoman omar's colleagues from the minnesota delegation came to her defense, using some of what marjorie taylor green had said and done as an example. >> she has never posted a video depicting herself decapitating and killing fellow members of congress. she doesn't question whether a plane really smashed into the pentagon on 911. she does not wonder if school shootings in america are staged. she has not propagated the absurd notion that space lasers financed by the rothchild family are the cause of wildfires in california. she has never equated vaccine

mandates with adolph hitler. >> hakeem jeffries underlined she said some things i disagreed with strongly, but you know what, a lot of republicans have done the same thing. >> or worse. >> i said stupid things when i was in congress. i think everybody at times in the heat of battle have said things they regretted. she apologized immediately. you have a lot of republicans who haven't apologized for putting people's lives at risk. so i guess that's what makes this to difficult to swallow, is the fact that congresswoman omar has apologized for what she has said, and you have these republicans that have said heinous things about her and never apologized. >> the pearl clutching of these

speeches on the floor condemning her is too much to take watching this. so you don't have any issue with what marjorie taylor green has said or the thousand of things we don't even have time to talk about that donald trump has said that is offensive to a range of groups across the world. the pearl clutching, i can't even get over. kevin mccarthy has shown little pep in his step to do much as speaker of the house yet. he has shown he's really excited and energized about trying to get people off committees. he's had countless meetings and calls. you'd think he was actually doing something to solve a problem people care about. no, no. he's trying to kick people off of committees. whatever you think of this, the american people do not care who's on committees. they care whether congress is doing something to help them.

that is also something that stood out to me. kevin mccarthy is like really impassioned about this particular issue. >> very well put. >> it's virtue signaling for the base. i look at the politicalization of the intel committee. my god, that used to be one committee that politics didn't pollute. the fact that he's pulled two people, two democrats off the intel committee with a lot of experience simply because they cross donald trump, investigated donald trump. it's a really bad precedent that is sure to boomerang back around and harm republicans in the future. this is so shortsighted and really unfortunate. >> former president trump lashed out at kevin mccarthy after the house speaker rejected the

suggestion that january 6th rioter ashley babbitt was murdered by police. garrett, what's the latest on that? >> this really went under the radar yesterday. kevin mccarthy took a question from a reporter about the killing of ashley babbitt, the rioter who was shot trying to break into the speakers lobby on january 6th. it seemed kind of out of nowhere in the moment, but mccarthy's response got at least one person's attention. >> one of the first things marjorie taylor green said was that ashley babbitt was murdered. do you think she was murdered? or do you think the police officer did his job? >> i think the police officer did his job. >> this has been a subject for some time in the maga online commentary about ashley babbitt and that day. one person who noticed it was donald trump, who posted last night on truth social, his

social media platform, about this, saying he strongly disagrees with kevin mccarthy and he believes ashley babbitt was murdered. for all the people picking up their phones to tweet about why we would elevate this right now, the answer is this, donald trump who's not been on twitter or most mainstream media is about to start appearing again in those places. he's been reinstated on these other social media platforms, and this is the kind of stuff he's been talking about on truth social with his closest supporters. it's the kind of thing those on capitol hill have urged him to let go. he's continuing to talk about 2020 and conspiracies about january 6th. kind of the single thing that caused the most people in the republican party to break from him, and he cannot let it go and

elevates it into a new tit for tat with the house speaker. watch as former president trump gets his social media megaphones back. >> mika, you've had rioters going through the capitol and they were trying to break through. just so everybody knows, they were breaking through the door to get them right onto the house floor. the unfortunate very sad confrontation took place. the police officers had a riot and they wanted to protect members in the house of representatives from being killed. >> it's horrible. >> so the fact that donald trump, again, we talked about

politics is about the future, not the past. donald trump going back, calling police officers murders, calling police officers murderers for trying to protect members of congress. now, of course, this is the same donald trump that said on january 6th that mike pence deserved to be hanged. this is the same donald trump that sat for hours and watched rioters beat the hell out of police officers. >> this is the same donald trump that sent them all there. >> he sat in front of his tv set and rewinding the most violent parts of the riots while they were going on while his son, while his daughter, while people closest to him, while lawyers, while everybody in the white house was begging him to call off the rioters. he refused. later he said the constitution

of the united states should be terminated. >> it's as sick as it gets. >> there's a good word for it. the word, deplorable. if the word fits, use it. he is so deplorable in going back and, again, trying to attack police officers, calling them murderers. we are going to cover the state of the union address. >> nancy pelosi will be our guest on "morning joe" on wednesday morning. we move now to this morning's breaking news on the economy. payroll surged by 517,000 jobs in january, much better than the 187,000 expected. that's a lot better. the unemployment rate fell to

3.4%. let's bring in the coanchor of squawk box, andrew ross sorkin. >> andrew, andrew, andrew, you cannot keep this economy down. it is crazy. interest rates keep going up. we keep hearing about a coming recession and then we get 517,000 jobs added, unemployment dropping to 3.4%, the lowest rate since 1969. what is going on with this economy? >> i think it's unabashedly good news in so many ways, in part because frankly it was unexpected. we keep talking about all these headlines whether it's tech companies or others that have been laying people off. yet, there's clearly an

employment market on the other end. 1969 is the last time we've had such a good employment market in this regard. jay powell desperately wants to get inflation back to 2%. inflation has this effect. what does the federal reserve do about all of this? we talk about it all the time. there's good news and the numbers are unabashedly good news. then you have to say to yourself what is the federal reserve going to do about it? the truth is if the federal reserve says this is terrible news and we may have to put our

foot back on the neck of the economy, when just two days ago the markets were saying maybe they're going to let off. >> the markets go up. a lot of these tech companies, the stocks explode right now, the futures for the dow down. yesterday we saw the fed sort of take its foot off the gas a little bit, maybe suggest that we've reached peak inflation. the same happened in the u.k. but the eu said not so fast, we still have inflationary pressures. she kind of kept her foot on the gas. maybe she's right, huh? >> we're seeing the same thing you're seeing in our data. labor markets look tight, strong. jobs are still there for those that want them and many employers are struggling to fill roles. this is definitely an economy with a lot of momentum. if i were to have one key

take-away, i would say there is probably a lot more gas in the tank for this economy to keep going. >> and why is that? over the past year, we said, oh well, we had all of the covid relief checks and all of that money pouring into the economy. most of that is washed through now. most of that is washed out now. it's why people were predicting by this time we were going to be facing recession. no. this economy is still going strong. any clues as to what's driving it? >> you said it yourself. this is a very resilient labor market and one of the things that we see is that 94% of working americans feel really confident about their careers and their jobs. so when americans feel confident about their ability to earn money, they're going to feel confident about their ability to spend money. that's going to keep the economy

going. there's a lot of confidence out there. we see it in professionals and workers coming to our platform. there's a lot of jobs out there still. employers are still hiring. as long as that continues, that's going to create more headaches for jay powell, of course. >> on that note, is there still a labor shortage? is it still tough to get workers? >> there's clearly a labor shortage. this is customer driven, meaning the consumer is still spending. now, the question if you're in the skeptic business is to say why are they still spending. one of the issues we should note is when you look at the credit card debt, the debt of the american consumer, it is rising. yes, they're spending, but they're not spending with their own money. then the question becomes do they have enough money on the other end of this?

a lot of bank ceos say it's going to get tough come june or july or august. that was before this employment report, so we'll see whether that changes. if you're trying to look out as to what happens in the second half of this year and farther out, there are still some signs or red flags to think about. >> it's so interesting. there's so many cross currents that we heard karen and andrew talking about. also, consumer confidence right now going down a little bit, sort of shaky. yet, the jobs market stronger than it's been since 1969. >> thank you very much, both of you, for being on this morning. coming up on "morning joe," meteorologists are predicting a once in a generation windchill this weekend. we'll take a look at the brutally cold forecast in the northeast. plus, the latest from

ukraine, where russia is expected to launch a new offensive campaign. it comes as there are new intelligence reports about who russia is sending to the front lines and how many soldiers they've lost. >> by the way, mika, mt. washington right now feels like minus 80. now feels like minus 80 shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. struggling with the highs and lows of bipolar 1? ask about vraylar. because you are greater than your bipolar 1, and you can help take control of your symptoms - with vraylar. some medicines only treat the lows or highs.

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it is half past the hour. officials in ukraine are warning that russia is deploying more troops and military equipment in preparation of a new possible offensive. nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez has the latest from kyiv. >> reporter: this morning, ukraine sounding the alarm that russian forces are on the cusp of launching a new offensive. half a million russian troops have been mobilized, not all of them well trained, but their sheer numbers meant to overwhelm ukrainian defenses.

russian missiles falling day and night. this direct hit on an apartment building killing four people, authorities say. the city's hospital straining to treat the many wounded. i felt the pain and everything went dark, she says. president zelenskyy vowing ukraine will stay united whatever comes next. >> we have been standing against evil for almost a year. >> reporter: at a world war ii commemoration, president putin making veiled threats of nuclear conflict with the west. they don't understand that modern war with russia will be quite different for them. despite ukraine's pleas, western tanks still weeks from reaching the battlefield and no deal for now for nato to provide f-16 fighter jets. in bakhmut police say 200 children are left in what was once a city of 70,000 people. to get them out, they're using kid-sized bulletproof vests. they're made by the leave

lviv defense cluster. this 9-year-old's family was forced to flee kharkiv at the start of the war. >> this is for children from 4 to 6 years old. >> reporter: a pocket for parents' phone numbers and a strap to carry kids to safety. my bullet proof vest a little less colorful than angelicas. a sliver of safety for kids growing up in war. >> nearly 200,000 russian troops have been killed or wounded in ukraine according to the "new york times." u.s. officials say moscow has been sending poorly trained troops to the front line, resulting in hundreds being killed or injured daily. do you think these numbers of

the russian troops that we're talking about, the numbers of those killed and injured and perhaps not as experienced as they should be, is known across russia? >> unlikely. putin regime controls the information and i think russians can suspect that hundreds of thousands of russians have been killed and wounded. ukraine numbers are probably 130,000, plus many died in hospitals because of many poor treatment. i would say the numbers were exceeding 200,000 and the numbers will climb because troops are poorly trained. but putin doesn't care and he still has resources to throw into the battle, cannon fodder. while watching this report, i was crying. these lives could have been saved if american weapons, the long range missiles could be supplied to ukraine months ago.

they would have hit russian missile bases that are killing ukrainians. the west and the united states sitting on the weapons promised months ago. the tanks will not be there in weeks, but in months. they are still talking about repairing these tanks, buying them, taking them from somewhere. ukraine is fighting the war nato was built for in 1949, defending europe against russian invasion. the war is there and nobody wants boots on the ground. please give ukrainian what you have. you are sitting on these weapons that could change the course of this war. >> your latest article for foreign affairs is entitled "don't fear putin's demise." you write, quote, putin's effort

to restore russia's lost empire is destined to fail. for such a political transformation to take place, putin must be defeated militarily in ukraine. a decisive loss on the battlefield would pierce putin's aura of invinceability and expose him as the architect of a failing state, making his regime vulnerable from challenge within. >> do you fear the threats of nuclear weapons? if putin is pushed to the wall and feels there's a threat to his regime and life, that he would use nuclear weapons? >> he hasn't said nuclear. the hypothetical threat could

make us slow down. putin never mentioned nuclear in the speech. putin keeps playing the same card. he's bluffing. it always worked. now he could sense there's still a weakness on the side of his counterparts. i'm not talking about ukrainians, who are resilient. but look at america and europe. there's still disagreement about the strategic goal of this war. we still have talks about negotiated outcome. they're trying to push this false narrative that every war ends up at the negotiating table. nothing could be further from the truth. world war ii, the war on the values has not ended on the negotiating table. american civil war did not end on the negotiating table when you fight for principles, there's nothing to negotiate.

>> i think you actually do have to worry about a madman sitting on more nuclear weapons than any other country on the planet. do you not fear the possibility that vladimir putin could resort to using nuclear weapons? >> anything could happen. you could have a big asteroid hit earth. >> i mean -- >> if we had more time, i could tell you the chances are very, very small. the problem is, if we let this blackmail work, then we have to probably close nato, because the same threat will be used to conquer latvia, poland, any other country. this is a unique moment where we could end the story of the russian empire and give countries around russia the

chance to live in peace. every empire survives only by expanding. economically russia is in terrible shape. many russians will never forget the military defeat. that creates ripe conditions for regime change. that's the best hope for everybody, not only ukrainians. >> we remember the chaos in russia, the anarchy in russia after the fall of the soviet empire in 1991. i'm curious, do you fear a repeat of that following -- let's say if vladimir putin is removed, do you fear the possibility of that? do you fear the possibility of anarchy and chaos in this

nuclear state? >> you said collapse of the soviet union and the chaos. yeah, there was a chaotic transition, but even then there were some local wars. today in probably one day russians kill more people than died throughout the whole year of 1991. the collapse of putin regime will not lead to immediate democratic transition. it will be a very chaotic process. it's like a road map through the jungles. but preserving putin regime, offering him a chance to escape from this trap and present his regime as a winner in this war and reneging on the fundamental values of peace and rule of law, that's much worse. it's not that we have a great choice now. it's about the lesser evil. the only opportunity for us to enter the new era of peace is to arm ukrainian to the teeth.

nobody expected ukraine to survive for that long. remember the cia saying ukraine army would not survive? all are wrong. give ukraine all the weapons. the alternative is much worst. it's america's responsibility to make sure ukraine survives, because it's a front line of freedom. for those who worry about china, china is watching now. because ukraine is doing so well, china is having probably second thoughts about taiwan. if putin wins and every outcome of this war is a victory, china will reconsider its position toward taiwan. i have no doubt about it. >> gary cass prove, thank you so much. coming, a 1943 meeting

between franklin delnor roosevelt, winston churchill and joseph stalin changed the course of world war ii, setting the stage for an allied victory. but our next guest tells the little known story of how it almost led to a world shattering disaster. to a world shattering disaster in one second, sara yes! will get a job offer somewhere sunnier. relocating in weeks. weeks? yeah, weeks. gotta sell the house. don't worry, sell to opendoor, and move on your schedule. yes! request a cash offer at opendoor.com ♪ ♪ ♪♪

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wonderful pistachios. get crackin' a new book is shedding light on a little known nazi plot that could have changed the entire course of history if it had been successful. the nazi conspiracy gives a harrowing account of the nazi's audacious plan to assassinate u.s. president franklin d. roosevelt, british prime minister winston churchill and soviet premier joseph stalin in one fell swoop. it centers around the 1943 summit in tehran, where the three world leaders would meet face to face to hammer out an ambitious strategy to defeat the nazi regime and save the world.

brad meltzer joins us now. great to have you back on the show. tell us about this scenario that didn't happen, but could have. >> this is a moment in 1943 at the height of the war where joseph stalin wants us to invade continental europe. he's being decimated by the nazis. we're sending munitions and supplies, but what he wants is us to invade. fdr realizes this is the moment to get the big three together, look each other in the eye and make a plan about troop movements, about supplies, about morale. it's in tehran, iran, of all places. fdr is in the middle of it because churchill and stalin hate each other. to set up the plot, obviously fdr's motorcade is coming down the city street. the president is waving back

from the motorcade. here's what no one knows. that's not the president in the motorcade. it's actually a secret service decoy. the real fdr is in the back of a beat-up sedan racing through side streets because they're worried a nazi assassin is about to murder him. >> that sounds harrowing. >> you say on the eve of the summit, the nazis parachuted a team of assassins into tehran and some were captured. but while this summit was going on, you say six were still on the loose. >> that's the amazing part. as soon as fdr arrives at this meeting, mike riley, who's the head of secret service at the time. he says, listen, we got word of a plot to kill you. it's the russians that find that plot. they say, we've captured about

30 parachutists who have come in in the middle of the night. there are six still on the loose. we don't know where they are. fdr believes him, obviously. they start making plans. what none of them know is that not only is that happening, but at the same time fdr moves into the soviet embassy, the embassy is also bugged. it's one of the great untold moments of world war ii. there's people you've never heard of like nazi assassins. he's brought to hitler and told i have an amazing mission for you. they have a guy. they have a man on the inside in tehran. >> is this a movie yet?

>> it should be optioned. talk about how did you learn about this conspiracy? i've done a lot of reading about world war ii, done a lot of reading about the summits. how did you learn about this and what was the most surprising thing you uncovered through your research? >> i love the footnotes. you know me long enough to know that. i found it in this tiny little article that was barely what's story? and my co-author went down the rabbit hole. the story that was amazing is the story about otto scorzeni. otto is this guy who is a special operations guy for hitler, and hitler brings all of his special ops guys into a big room, stands them shoulder to shoulder, and adolf hitler in his secret headquarters quizzes them with one question. he says what do you think of

italy. and all the special ops guys are like, oh, italy's on our side. we love fighting with them, but otto gambles and he says i'm from austria my furer, and he knows that hitler from's austria. a true austrian resents italy. that's what he says you're the person. i never knew the story. wow. >> to me the key question is why tell the story? and for me when charlottesville happened and we see nazis marching in charlottesville, we all wring our hands and say how can this happen in america, but we found when we were researching it that in world war ii, it was a nazi rally in madison square garden in the heart of new york city 20,000 nazis cheering together, there's a big banner of george washington surrounded by swastikas, the first speaker at the rally says you know, if george washington were alive today, he'd be friends with

adolf hitler, so why are we still fighting nazis? because they never left. they've been here since world wa world war ii. you have a charismatic leader, in this case adolf hitler, the native white germans who are suffering economically and hitler said that thing we see decade after decade. those people, those people are the cause of your problems. and we know that that's code. for adolf hitler he's talking about the jewish people. we've seen it with the black community, pick your minority community. what the book is about, the american dream to me is not about making money. when you see someone being bullied, you use your voice, you speak up and you say enough. enough. that's the great lesson of world war ii. >> the new book is "the nazi conspiracy: the secret plot to kill roosevelt, stalin and churchill," brad, congratulations on this book.

>> just looks great, thank you so much. >> looks amazing. i'm sure we'll be hearing more about this. thanks for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. >> good to see you, thanks. and coming up, ticketmaster could have another ticket disaster around the corner. >> oh, boy. >> mm-hmm. we'll tell you which artist is most likely to cause the site to crash again. and an update on the monkey business at the dallas zoo. police may have the person responsible for stealing the primates and stashing them in a closet. "morning joe" is back in a moment. there's a different way to treat hiv. it's every-other-month, injectable cabenuva. for adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete, long-acting hiv treatment you can get every other month.

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wow. a look at beautiful mount washington, new hampshire, where right now it feels like negative 81 degrees. >> yeah, that's got -- >> looks a little frigid. >> you may want to stay inside if you're in upper new england this weekend. all right, a really, really low temperatures and brutal windchills are expected this weekend. we have an update on a story we told you about yesterday. ticketmaster says it is bracing for high demand for beyonce's concert tickets. the singer announced states for her renaissance world tour this week spurring concerns this could turn into another taylor swift ticket fiasco.

now ticketmaster says it plans to use a verified fan system to prioritize sales to those who register. that system has a multistep verification process that will help filter out bots and buyers looking to re-sell tickets. tickets for beyonce's tour go on sale next week. so we will keep you posted. >> and the story that you've been obsessed about this week. >> police have arrested a man in connection to the monkeys stolen from the dallas zoo. the 24-year-old suspect faces six counts of animal cruelty. he was arrested yesterday afternoon near the dallas world aquarium. so he was still at it. >> still at it. >> after police received a tip. >> going after fish. >> two tamron monkeys were taken from the zoo earlier this week and found a few days later. police are investigating the suspect in connection to other incidents at the zoo including a

vulture that was found dead and a clouded leopard that escaped its enclosure. horrible. not funny. >> it's just terrible. >> i hope that they get to the bottom of this, and we will do a follow-up on louisiana next week. i know you're feeling louisiana is left out. >> i'm sure we will. all right, before we leave, let's go to jen psaki, and as long as you don't talk about missing monkeys or leopards or whatever else, we would love to hear your final thoughts for the day, week. >> i do worry about the cheetahs hiding in their habitats across the country. in addition to that i'm going to be watching the state of the union, of course, and specifically how the president addresses police reform. last year in his speech if you look back, it's a paragraph, and he says we're not for defunding, we're for funding, funding, funding, that's where he is in his heart. after watching that tyre nichols video, i can't imagine there isn't some moment to address accountability. but i'll be watching that. >> uh-huh.

obviously he's going to be talking about that, the economy, he has a lot of good things to talk about as far as the economy goes. as we said earlier, really, record low unemployment rates or at least going back to 1969, well over a half century. so the economy, he's got good news to talk about. a lot of things going on in china. a lot of things going on with russia. he's got his plate full. it should be a fascinating state of the union address. >> do we have the utica cam? have a wonderful weekend, everybody, stay warm if you're in new england. that does it for us this morning. josé diaz-balart picks up the coverage right now. and good morning, 10:00 a.m., eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific, i'm josé diaz-balart, and breaking this morning, new reaction just moments ago from the chinese government after the u.s. military tracked a suspected chinese spy balloon