general, we've never seen an object like this gain entry into our air space before. how did that happen? >> that's an excellent question, katie. the balloon was somehow able to get past our west coast anti-balloon defense system, the seattle space needle. but, once it was here, we were able to keep an eye on it with our sophisticated tracking technology of going like this. >> "saturday night live" with its take on china's spy balloon. this morning, there are rising diplomatic tensions between the u.s. and china after a white house decision to shoot down

that massive spy balloon. we'll walk through what happened and take a look at the growing fallout. we're also following the devastating aftermath of a powerful earthquake that left hundreds of people dead in turkey and syria. this morning, rescue crews are searching through rubble for any survivors. and back in washington, there is a major gop donor looking to, quote, turn the page on the past several years in an apparent rebuke of former president trump. we'll explain that development. plus -- >> four more years! four more years! four more years! >> president biden got a surge of support at the democratic national committee's annual winter meeting in philadelphia on friday. as democrats approve a new primary calendar, reshaping the way the party picks its presidential nominees. we'll speak to the chairman of the dnc just ahead.

good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, february 6th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. nbc national affairs analyst, executive of "the recount," and podcast on "hell and high waters," john heilemann. the author of "the bill of obligations, the ten habits of good citizens," richard haass is with us this morning. a lot to get to. we start with the latest on the chinese spy balloon and the rising tensions with beijing over the biden administration's decision to shoot it down. a senior defense official tells nbc news the pentagon has been analyzing the remnants of the balloon over the past few days after it was shot down off the coast of south carolina on saturday. according to the defense department, the balloon first entered u.s. air space on january 28th by way of the

aleutian islands. it then briefly crossed into canada before reentering u.s. territory on tuesday via idaho and floating across the midwest to south carolina. speaking after saturday's shootdown operation, president biden gave new insight into why the balloon wasn't brought down sooner. on wednesday, when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday, as soon as possible. i told them to shoot it down. >> on wednesday? >> on wednesday. they said, let's wait until the safest place to do it. >> the violation of international law led to the white house cancelling secretary of state antony blinken's planned visit to beijing last week, which was to have been the first by a cabinet member since the biden administration took office. that's a message. despite multiple statements from the chinese government accusing the white house of overreacting

to a so-called weather balloon that drifted off course, u.s. officials have doubled down on their position that the balloon intentionally crossed into north america to, quote, monitor sensitive military sites. so, joe, a lot of questions here. >> yeah, i mean, a lot of questions. a lot of hyperbole. a lot of panting and heavy breathing on twitter over the past weekend. not surprisingly, a lot of republicans making total fools of themselves with statements that they're making about the balloon. richard haass, i won't even say their names because why dignify their remarks with any comments? but the pentagon decided that it would be best not to shoot the balloon down on wednesday, and the idea, we have these people

screeching and howling, members of congress, members of the senate, people who are supposed to know better, about how this is the end of western civilization as we know it and we've backed down. this is, you kno -- this is the retreat in the winter as the russians -- again, the lunacy, as if they don't spy on us and we don't spy on them. let me step into the fray here with you and suggest that, yes, this is a problem and it's a problem that needed to be taken care of and was. it's a problem that we need to talk to the chinese about. we can't do that if we're cancelling the first diplomatic mission we've had there since biden was president of the united states. was it a mistake to cancel the meeting despite the balloon over montana? >> i think it was. i would have gone ahead with the

diplomacy. would have given the secretary of state the first chance in a half dozen years to speak with xi jinping, who is the only person there who really matters. we have enormous issues on the agenda, including growing chinese support for russia and what it is doing in ukraine. obviously, we don't want taiwan to trigger war between the world's two largest economies. we have real issues to discuss with china. it's not first time they've sent balloons over us. it's a mystery, joe, as to why this one seems to have been lower, why it was observed. the one thing i'm pretty sure is even though china was intentional in sending a balloon this way, they were not intentional, they did not want to disrupt the summit. china has been on a charm offensive for the last few months, ever since president xi and biden met in bali. they want things to calm down. if they wanted to cause a crisis between the united states, trust me, they got a lot of ways to do it. my guess is they'd begin with taiwan. i think this was truly

intentional. i think we probably got it wrong in cancelling the visit. i think the criticisms we should have got it down sooner, this was not a -- something where the chinese learned a whole lot. as best i can tell, we seemed to interfere with the ability of the balloon to glean certain intelligence, as you pointed out. it is hardly the only area of surveillance or espionage they carry out on us or vice versa. >> again, or that we carry out on them. >> sure. >> the fact that some of these republicans are shocked stuff like this happens, horrified, i mean, we do it all the time. we surveil them all the time. it's what happens. this is an incursion, and we should treat it seriously. should we declare it the end of western civilization? should we cancel a summit when we have, again, like you said, a war in ukraine there.

we've got to talk to xi. right now, xi has been the person along with modi that sent the message to putin. hey, if you use tactical nuclear weapons, all bets are off. we'll come out strongly against you. you know, they're putting boundaries around putin. we have taiwan that's of growing concern. we have an economic slowdown. we need to work. there are thousands of issues that the world's last two superpowers need to discuss, that we haven't been able to discuss on the highest level. again, this is one of the just grow up moments. yes, it happened. e yes, it's bad. talk to xi about it. >> you have diplomacy not because you don't have problems but because you do.

this is not the cuban missile crisis. this is not a huge event in the history of the modern world. again, i don't see the chinese were out to make a larger point. we don't exactly know who authorized this and when it was authorized. we don't know what their intentions were, other than they were clearly sending a balloon to gather some kind of information. one more point and then i'll stop. in crises, it is important to slow down. the republican hyperventilating goes against crisis management. the point is to calm and slow things down, not overreact and so forth. that's the lesson of how kennedy handled the missile crisis. again, i think the administration got it about right, not acting precipitously, shooting it down when it was over water. now, i think the challenge is to get things back on track. >> again, less of a need to hyperventilate if you're talking about a balloon.

>> well, it's not any balloon. >> it's serious. we've talked about it being serious, but some of the statements from the republicans, especially in the senate, have just been asinine. these jackasses going out, i have my shotgun. i'll shoot down the balloon. seriously, again, they just make clowns of themselves. let's bring in right now from beijing, nbc news foreign correspondent janis mackey frayer. janis, good morning. any insights to this balloon that interrupted what was going to be a very important diplomatic meeting between tony blinken and president xi? >> reporter: there is no surprise there is outrage in china. the foreign ministry wasn't revealing any more about the balloon, to shore up the claim it is a civilian air ship gathering information on the weather. however, a spokesperson did say that that second balloon that was spotted over latin america is also chinese.

it is also civilian. it was also blown off course. now, the statement released yesterday by the foreign ministry blasted the u.s. for overreacting, for using force, for shooting down the balloon. the defense ministry also said it reserved the right to act further if necessary. it puts u.s.-china relations in a very awkward spot, considering the secretary of state is supposed to be here right now, having the first meetings with chinese officials that were seen as the best possible chance in years to reset relations. that china sies on the u.s. and vice versa is no secret between these sides. i spoke yesterday with the former senior colonel with the pla, now with a thinktank. we talked about china's options. >> this has nothing to do with military confidence or surveillance. it was an accident.

we have expressed regret over this. united states believe in it, and i cannot see any reason why the u.s. government should not believe it, except to make a, you know, a view of it. this should be over. american surveillance and reconnaissance by ships, aircraft, drones, almost uncountable on an annual basis.. they do not want to keep it a secret. >> reporter: whether china's leadership wants to escalate a situation they claim was accidental is unclear. a lot of the commentary here is painting what the u.s. did as provocation, as an attack. while on social media, the u.s. is being mocked for overreacting. what the concern is, certainly among the analysis that i'm reading from the u.s., is that

there is the thought a precedent has been now set. u.s. surveillance operations in the region could now be targeted. certainly, anything that happens in the near future that involves the u.s. and taiwan is certainly going to raise the temperature here. or if something is discovered in that debris field, considering the proximity of that balloon to the sensitive sites. several days and a downed balloon into this, china isn't saying who it belongs to or what it was doing there. all they will say is that they are outraged and that they reserve the right for further repercussions. joe? >> shocked, stunned, and deeply saddened. thank you so much. nbc's jackie -- janis mackey frayer. thank you so much. it's early here. thank you for your reporting, as always. greatly appreciate. john heilemann, i said i wasn't going to mention names, but it seems to me if you are a ranking

member of an extraordinarily important commit are committee in the united states senate, you shouldn't debase yourself over a balloon. marco rubrubio, of course, tweeg frantically, and says that if we can't shoot down a balloon over montana, then it's china testing us. they know we're not going to do jack if china takes over parts of japan or india. a middle schooler, a middle schooler should be embarrassed for tweeting such things, let alone one of the most powerful republican senators in washington, d.c. please, please give us your insights on the republican overresponse to all of this. >> i heard you talking about jackasses, joe. when i heard the word jackass come out of your mouth, i

started to conjure in my mind who you were thinking about in the republican party. i spent a lot of time studying the mind of joe scarborough. it did occur to me the senator from florida, the republican senator from florida, once known as little marco, might be on your mind. >> no, no. >> he was on television, one of the sunday shows, he said exactly what you said. this is china sending a message to the world. i'm quoting him now. america is in decline. a once great superpower now in decline. >> oh, shut up. >> what they're telling the world is if america can't shoot down a balloon over montana, america has -- there's no way that america could be a force in a conflict over taiwan, as you mentioned. went on about great length about

the balloon and what it signified in the eyes of china and the american decline. >> what is it, john, about the age of republicans in the world of trump, where all they want to do is tear down america? you have ted cruz that wishes american soldiers could be more like russian soldiers. you have little marco talking about the collapse of america. we're a weakened power. don't know if they've noticed, but our military is stronger today relative to the rest of the world than any military has been in theist history of humankind. this is a fact. yet, they trash our military. donald trump says he trusts vladimir putin more than our intel services. they say they wanted to defund the fbi. they try to tear down every institution that protects us.

they wonder why they keep losing elections. >> right, joe. so many examples here. you would have thought that, you know, perhaps marco rubio and the other republicans would occasionally take note of the fact that, i think if they were to call up president zelenskyy in ukraine and ask how he feels about the way the u.s. has kept the nato alliance together, to aid ukraine over the course of the last year and put them in the position they're in now that no one expected, really, in the world's largest active conflict, there's been no force on the -- other than ukraine itself, on the other side that's had more effect in terms of -- who thought nato would be as strong and unified as it was? certainly not vladimir putin a year ago. what has happened instead? joe biden led nato in a place where it has been steadfast and unified. maybe not perfect, but it's performed with a degree of

strength and resolve no one expected. you don't have to be a joe biden cheerleader to say that. be a nato cheerleader. it escapes little marco, because he thinks he agrees with china. the implicit critique is he and other republicans agree with what they think the chinese view is, that america is in terminal decline. i don't know. i think there is -- you would have thought after four years of donald trump saying that he had made america great again, these folks would have the permission to come out and say, you know what, america is great again. and not to say, well, if america is in such state of decline, what happened to the four years of republican leadership where donald trump made america great again? i don't understand it. did joe biden bring on american decline just over the course of the last two years? it makes no sense, the things they say. it is not in their political interest either to have this position. it's not what republicanism has traditionally profited from, which is, you know, american exceptionally and a sense the country remains the singular

force for freedom and democracy around the world. >> yeah. >> they seem to want to argue against that. >> so think about this. it makes no sense. it makes no sense that, before donald trump is elected -- and, by the way, illegal crossings from mexico were at a 50-year low then, and then he was elected and all hell broke loose. just think about this. donald trump is going around screeching about how the american dream is dead before he gets elected. he's screeching about american savagery, american carnage when he becomes president. suddenly, america is great. now, now that you've got somebody other than donald trump in there, you have all of these people running around. they've been doing it, talking about how weak america is, how america is in decline. they're so busy hating on america. they're so busy hating on america's military. they're doing it again this weekend, talking about how we're -- no, we're not in

decline. we're stronger than we've ever been. i get so sick and tired of hearing people say this. it's been happening on this show 50 years, "oh, china is going to overtake it. china is going to" -- we hear it every day. i'd quote from warren buffett said after the crash in 2008. if you bet against the united states, you'll lose every time. yet, these republicans, ted cruz, wants russian soldiers instead of american soldiers. visit a base or two in texas. >> has he seen? >> we have the best fighters in the world. we have the best men and women in the world. we have the best leaders. we have the best weapons. we have got the best military system, the best training. mika, on the point of training, when you want to talk about the superiority of the united states -- and i know it makes marco rubio when i talk about how great america is. i know it makes ted cruz angry

when somebody is not hating on the united states military or the men and women who are the professionals in our intel services. but let me tell you something, you ask the ukrainians why they're doing so well right now, they'll say, yeah, the weapons are great, but it is american know-who. it's american training. they've been training us since 2014. they've taught us to be light on our feet. they've taught us to go out into the field. they've taught us how to not have a top-down system like the russians have but bottom-up. it is uniquely american. it is why the ukrainians have shocked the world. it is why there's 200,000 russian casualties. because of ukrainian courage, ukrainian persistence, but, yes -- >> backed by america. >> -- american know-how and american training. listen, our troops are the best in the world. they're the best they've ever been. i'm sick and tired of republicans trashing the united states of america, and i'm sick

and tired of them trashing our men and women in uniform, suggesting we're in decline. if you think we're in decline, if you want to have russian troops, move to russia, ted. if you hate troops from texas, move to russia. >> please. >> please, please. we're not keeping you here. >> take your podcast there. >> if you think we're in decline, if you think we're in decline, then move, marco! from miami to moscow, it's that simple. you know, it's conserve tifrs that said, america, love it or leave it. i feel like saying it to republicans who constantly trash america. they constantly trash the united states military. they constantly trash the men and women in the intel community who keep us safer and stand behind a man that says he trusts vladimir putin more than he trusts our professionals in the intel community. mika, this is no way to run a

party, and it sure as hell is no way to win elections. >> no, it's not. and you bring a good point. first of all, joe biden, if any republican cared to look, has done a pretty masterful job on the world stage. not only dealing with ukraine but working with our partners and strengthening nato. that history will be looking at very kindly on this presidency. but they're busy being reflexive and reactive to anything, no matter what it is. they will react negatively. again, to your point about our military, our world partners have a lot to say about the u.s. military. talk to pols, people in poland, when the 82nd airborne helped them along the border. nobody was happier to see the 82nd airborne than the polish citizens who had 3 million refugees crossing their borders. there was the 82nd airborne helping getting everything together.

then the news came that there will be more permanent troop presence in poland. nobody more pleased than pols to hear that they will never been invaded again. they know exactly how strong the u.s. military is. it is like the republicans don't see what the world sees because they're so busy, jonathan lemire, with their blinders on. >> yeah. one of the arguments we heard from republicans over the last few days is, well, this never would have happened when president trump was in office. >> please. >> yet, we know from officials that three different times during the trump administration, a chinese spy balloon was spotted over the united states. >> what happened? >> none were shot down. >> terrific. >> china has done this before. not sure why they send balloons when they could get information from the drones or other things. it is a concern. officials felt their hand was forced. they had to do something, not just because it was over sensitive military sites out west. >> send a message.

>> also, it'd become such a story. you couldn't turn on tv or look at twitter without talking about the balloon. they had to act. they were told, the president was told by the d.o.d. to wait until it is over water because of the debris field. officials tell us it stretched 7 miles or so over the atlantic ocean. >> wow. >> certainly, if that had happened over land and the payload of this was equivalent to three buses, people could have really been hurt. >> yeah. >> they felt like they had to wait. they had to act. i'm told they felt like the secretary of state's visit to beijing would have been overshadowed by this. there is a thought it could be rescheduled, but they made the calculation now wasn't the right time. >> interesting. >> richard haass, it is sureal for you and me. as a former republican, you worked for quite a few republican administrations. isn't it surreal to have republicans in the senate

trashing the united states, talking about us being in decline, just because they hate joe biden, and not seeing what mika was talking about? you talk to the pols. you know, it is like the 82nd airborne, those troops are 10 feet tall. you can see the pride in the pols. their chest just, you know, sticking out. they're so proud the 82nd airborne is there. the 10th mountain division is coming next. we have a permanent base there, and how could it be that people in foreign lands recognize the greatness of the united states military and, yet, you have people like ted cruz and marco rubio trashing them all the time and saying that we're weak and in decline? >> two reactions, joe. one is, maybe this makes me a dinosaur, but i grew up with the aage that politics stop at the water's edge. the presumption during the cold war, and other times, was the

united states came together and left the partisanship behind. we have come a long and depressing distance from that. it's almost as though people can't wait. what's so ironic is the difference between the trump-china policy and the biden-china policy is almost nil. there's tremendous continuity between the two for better and for worse. more broadly, there's been some good things about this administration's foreign policy. we've gone from america first to alliance first. we've been effective in standing up to russia in europe. strengthened ties with japan, taiwan, australia, india. we're in a much better position to deal with china. republicans ought to be celebrating that. that's the big story, not this balloon. >> by the way, richard, by the way, can i just say, you know, we've talked about two of the more high-profile republicans. let's be fair here. very fair. there are a lot of really responsible republicans that

have been really responsible during the ukrainian war. mitch mcconnell has actually stood shoulder-to-shoulder, the way you said, in a bipartisan manner, making sure that a communist, an ex-communist, member of the kgb, doesn't overrun ukraine. they have been strong. i've heard some republicans that have actually praised the fact that joe biden has, again, worked with not only australia, as you've said, but worked with japan, worked with south korea, and now the philippines, to build a really strong -- to strengthen our alliance there. i mean, people that are talking about biden right now -- and i've had a lot of harsh things to say about the biden administration and the decisions that were made on afghanistan. i know you did, too. but if you look at ukraine, if you look at europe, if you look

at asia, our alliances there are stronger and actually cause more of a threat to china than anything donald trump ever dreamed of doing. >> when historians assess the biden foreign policy, just these four years, i think that'll be the lead story. it'll be the resurrection of the alliance system, not just in europe but really building of the one in the asia pacific, what's called the indo-pacific now. all the countries you mentioned. japan at the center, but also australia, south korea, philippines, even vietnam to some extent. that's the big story. we've got these two big, strategic challengers in russia and china, and in both cases now, we are better off than we were in dealing with them. >> all right. we want to get to the terrible news out of turkey and syria, where a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the area, killing more than 1,300

people. hundreds are still believed to be trapped under rubble. the epicenter of the quake was in south central turkey, home to many syrian refugees, and the site of one of the largest operations run by the united nations high commissioner for refugees. the part of syria that was hit is divided between government-held territory and the country's last opposition-held enclave. this is the world's deadliest earthquake since june, when a 5.9 magnitude quake killed more than 1,100 people in afghanistan. we'll stay on it. still ahead on "morning joe," new polling shows most americans don't want a 2024 rematch between donald trump and joe biden. we're digging into those new numbers. plus, what we can expect from president biden's state of the union address, incluing his plans to draw a contrast between his leadership so far and the state of the republican party.

and embattled republican congressman george santos facing new scrutiny again, this time in the form of a harassment allegation. also this morning, my conversation with pamela anderson. she's weighing in on her new netflix documentary and memoir. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. when it was time to sign up for a medicare plan mom couldn't decide. but thanks to the right plan promise from unitedhealthcare she got a medicare plan expert to help guide her with the right care team behind her. the right plan promise only from unitedhealthcare.

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them. if they send me a national ban on the right to choose, i will stop them. >> 35 past the hour. president biden speaking friday at the democratic national committee's annual winter meeting in philadelphia. at this point, president biden faces no meaningful opposition to his leadership of the democratic party and a smooth path to renomination next year. even before he has officially declared his intention to seek it. as for the nominating process, the democratic national committee has adopted a new primary schedule, one that will dethrone iowa and new hampshire as the lead-off states in the democrats' presidential nominating process. under the new rules, south carolina will go first, then nevada and new hampshire, followed by georgia and michigan. however, the proposed calendar changes are not yet final. georgia will need cooperate from republicans in the state to change the primary date, and

officials from both sides of the aisle in new hampshire are vowing to fight the dnc schedule changes and still hold their primary first. party officials are giving both states until june 3rd to finalize their calendars. joining us now, chairman of the democratic national committee, jaime harrison. i'll toss to john heilemann for the first question. john? >> mr. chairman, good morning and happy monday. a big move by the democratic party here. it's been many years in these traditions. iowa goes first, followed immediately after by new hampshire and new hampshire alone on the following tuesday. now out the window. talk to us, just walk us through what the calendar now looks like and what the reasoning was behind its. we have acceptable sense of it, but the reasoning that put these new five-part calendar in february. looks totally different, what the reasoning was that led you

guys there. >> well, john, joe, mika, it's always great to be with you. i need to say hello to the most avid "morning joe" watcher, which is my mom, patricia. but, listen, this calendar looks like the democratic party, and it reflects the diversity of america. when you look at it, we start off with three small states. we start with south carolina. it's chosen the democratic nominee every time since 1992, with the exception of 2004 with john edwards. john kerry got second here in south carolina. we then move three days later to two other small states, new hampshire, which has traditionally been the second contest, as you all know. iowa and then new hampshire. new hampshire retains that spot. then we also add nevada, which elevates latino voters. then we go to two larger states. we go to georgia, which is the home of the new south, and then we go to michigan, which is the heart of the heartland.

where the middle-class was born. i'm really, really excited a bt about this calendar because i think it reflects the best of the democratic party and the best of america. >> chairman harrison, good morning. jonathan lemire. i know this will be a decision and the order could be re-evaluated in four years. that's part of this. new hampshire is pretty unhappy now. they say that things have changed. yes, they're still second, but they are no longer the first primary. south carolina has jumped them. we're hearing from more prominent democrats in the state -- forget about the republicans -- very upset about it, saying they simply won't play ball. what are you going to do? >> well, you know, again, i know this for a second time, new hampshire has always been the second presidential nominee contest. it continues to hold that position in the calendar. but let's take a step back. for 50 years -- i just turned 47 yesterday. longer than i was alive, for 50 years, iowa and new hampshire have been, you know, the one-two step as it relates to selecting

the next nominee for the democratic party. we are just changing that. we are giving more people and more voices an opportunity to influence where we go as a party and as a nation. i think that's really important for us to continue to evolve. so this is what we're going to do. we have told new hampshire we will continue to work with you. again, they are in the same spot. actually, probably even a little better. instead of having a week between iowa and new hampshire, there's three days between south carolina and new hampshire. they'll still have tremendous influence, as much as they've always had, but we are adding diverse voices because our party reflects the diverse voices. we're willing to worse with them and will continue to do that. >> yeah, so we need to give people a historical perspective here. this isn't like this just happened. i mean, if you read some op-eds

on the far right, they'll say, oh, joe biden is doing this to rig the election for next year. yeah, for '24. this has been a legitimate complaint among democrats for decades. you have two of the whitest states in america going one and two. usually by the end of those two contests, the narrative is framed. nobody else can get through it. i remember us commenting on this show after biden got crushed in iowa and crushed in new hampshire, people were saying he's out of the race. i remember saying, wait, you actually have a democratic candidate that is going to be kicked out of a race before black voters, the democratic party's most important constituency, even have a say in it. these two states, as close as they are to our hearts, we love them for a thousand different reasons pertaining to this show, and we have so many friends

there in iowa and new hampshire, but these two states do not reflect the diversity of the democratic party. this has been an ongoing complaint for 20 years. >> joe, you hit the nail on the head. you know, president biden said when he visited south carolina in the last contest, by the time he got there, it was the fourth contest, there were a number of other candidates that'd already dropped out. as he said, 99.9% of black voters had not had the chance to vote at that point. that just should not be when african-americans and latino-americans make up such an important component, the backbone of the democratic party. so we needed to change things up because things have changed a lot since the 1970s. the democratic party looks very differently than it did then. so we have to constantly evolve. this is a part of that

evolution, and i'm proud of this calendar. i think it's going to only strengthen the democratic party long term. >> so if a state doesn't abide by the rules, do you just not count their primary delegates? >> well, hopefully we are not going to get down that road, joe, but we have passed some mechanisms that give the chair some authorities in order to enforce our calendar. if we have to go down that route, we will. but we're going to do everything that we can to work with our states. again, new hampshire is still in. if anybody should be complaining, it'd be iowa, right? but new hampshire is still in the same spot that they have always been in, the second nominating contest, and we will continue to work with them to ensure that they participate fully in this process. >> dnc chairman jaime harrison,

thank you so much. patricia, thank you so much for watching. >> we love you, mom. ultra wealthy conservatives say they'll support a candidate in the 2024 republican presidential primaries, and it doesn't sound like it will be donald trump. what it means for the former president's chances to win the nomination. plus, revelations the trump 2020 campaign team knew it lost in a pivotal battleground state but continued to try foul, voter fraud, anyway. we'll play for you the damning, new audio recordings. "morning joe" will be right back. i'm your glitchy wi-fi which means your smart home isn't so smart. sprinkler on. and now i'm sending mixed signals... to your garage. but, if you haven't bundled your home and auto, unpacking this isn't going to be too much fun. so get allstate.

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48 past the hour. a live look at the white house on a beautiful morning here in washington.

the "associated press" has released new audio recordings of a trump campaign staffer back in november of 2020, two days after election day. specifically, the audio is from the trump campaign manager in wisconsin, offering a behind the scenes look at how the campaign there knew they'd lost to democrats in the state but continued to promote allegations of voter fraud anyway. >> here's the drill, comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about democrats trying to steal this election. we'll do whatever they need our help with, okay, so just be on standby incase there's any stunts we need to pull. >> the "a.p." points out the man in the clip, iverson, is the regional director for the republican national committee now. he deferred all questions about the audio to the rnc, which

declined to comment. joe, here we go again. i mean, up and down the line. >> well, up and down the line, but it is coming from the very top with donald trump. >> oh, yeah. >> john heilemann, if you listen to the entire clip, he begins by telling everybody that is assembled, "hey, listen, tip of the hat to the democrats. they out organized us. they got people out to vote. they beat us. fair and square. now, we're going to have to run around and screech about how democrats stole this election. standby to pull, quote, stunts." that's just part of the story. i think, as paul harvey would say, if you want to know the rest of the story, this guy got a promotion. he went from running wisconsin to running the entire midwest region. because he knew they lost, he

saluted the democrats for out organizing them, and then say, let's scream and yell and say we were robbed, this election was rigged, and pull stunts. that's what you do in the republican party in 2020, 2022, to get a promotion. >> look, you know, that's -- it was certainly what you did in 2020 and 2022, and i think, you know, we all agree, the big question is whether that continues to be the case coming out of 2022, and whether what seems to be the fading relevance of donald trump, whether that will meet the faded relevance of trumpism. that's the question in politics in the republican party. joe, think about all the people up and down the line who decided, in that moment, when that tape was made, that there was no potential cost, no potential real risk to indulging donald trump's dangerous rhetoric on this front. we obviously learned to the

contrary. you know, i bet if you went into an awful lot of closed rooms in battleground states that joe biden won that he wasn't supposed to win, according to the trump people, you'd find similar tapes in a lot of people. people who looked at this data, just as people did at the national level in the campaign, looked and said, you know, we lost this election, but there was no upside for them professionally to speaking truth anywhere, let alone to power within their party. they thought the thing to do here is to salute sharply the lies, and we'll get rewarded for that. as this shows, they did. >> mika, if you want another clean illustration, a great illustration of just how cynical republicans were about this election, knowing they had lost but still lying publicly, look no further than our own dear

friend -- i'm a bit sarcastic here -- ron johnson. >> oh. >> remember ron johnson was secretly taped at the republican convention or some right-wing convention. he sat there explaining accurately why donald trump lost. he got 60,000 less than our legislative candidates. 60,000 less than the other republicans running statewide. 60,000 less than this, than that. ron johnson, when he didn't think he was actually being recorded, when he didn't think that this would see the light of day, admitted what every republican in wisconsin, what every republican in michigan, what every republican in pennsylvania, what every republican in georgia that was in the party knew. >> right. >> as brad raffensperger said, it was a clean election. >> yeah, uh-huh. >> one of the cleanest elections ever. one of donald trump's own people

in charge of election integrity said it was the cleanest election in american history. but here you have these republicans saying, wow, the democrats, well, this guy is saying the democrats just outworked us. ron johnson is saying it was all donald trump's fault. that's what they say privately. then they go out publicly and try to undermine american democracy. here it is again. why do republicans tear down america? whether republicans are tearing down the american military, whether republicans are tearing down the men and women who are in the best law enforcement agency on the planet, whether they're tearing down american democracy, why is it republicans feel the need to keep tearing down america for one guy who will show them absolutely no loyalty? >> and loses.

>> and if loses the republican nomination will run as an independent and destroy the republican party for another eight years. >> add to the list roger stone, who said, if we don't win, i think he used f-u to people. they planned to cheat all the way through. ahead, we'll look at the morning papers. plus, one piece entitled "republicans have a big kari lake problem." and new york city mayor eric adams is our guest this morning. he is putting a spotlight on the record number of asylum seekers arriving in new york city. "morning joe" is coming right back. nier, so please don't bring it up. - bring what up? kayak? - excuse me? do the research, todd. - listen to me. kayak searches hundreds of travel sites to find you great deals on flights, cars and hotels. - they're lying to you.

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bad news for china, it's a girl. chinese officials condemned the u.s. decision to destroy the surveillance balloon, saying it was a civilian aircraft. okay, but everyone civilian aircrafts can be extremely dangerous. >> oh, come on. >> "snl" on fire. that was pretty good. i like it, it's a girl, bad news. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, february 6th. john heilemann and jonathan lemire are still with us. joining the conversation, we have columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius is with us this morning. and white house correspondent for "politico" and co-awe author of "the play book," eugene daniels joins us, as well. most americans are not interested in seeing a rematch between joe biden and donald trump in 2024. according to a new "washington post"/abc news poll, biden and

trump both fail to generate broad excitement within their own party. 56% said they would be dissatisfied or angry if trump returned to the white house in 2024. more than 6 in 10 americans said the same about the prospect of biden being re-elected. among republicans and independent leaning republicans, most. 17%. meanwhile, the latest ugov poll puts president biden's rating heading into his state of the union address at 45%. that's relatively stable for over the past 15 months, joe, joe biden holding his approval rating. i'm kind of surprised by this and not surprised. because joe biden is constantly

underestimated. but on the trump side, i'm surprised there isn't more. >> right, yeah. but the thing about biden is, he's always been underestimated. >> always. >> we were talking to jaime harrison about -- you know, think about all the people who said he shouldn't run. we heard whispers out of the obama camp he shouldn't run. we heard whispers out of every camp he shouldn't run. he was openly mocked after iowa. he was openly mocked after new hampshire. everybody said it was over, he was counted out. he ended up winning. then he's been openly mocked since then, and he was going to get crushed by this red wave that we never saw coming in '22. he turns in a performance that, by some standards, historical. you'd have to go back to the 1930s to see somebody that held a president in the same party whose governors ran all across the country and won. he picked up a seat in the

senate. he did better in the house. mccarthy thought that republicans would pick up 50, 60 seats. they barely squeaked by. wouldn't have even done that if new york knew how to redraw their maps properly. so he's always underestimated. john heilemann, this is nothing new. he's underestimated again. make no mistake about it, a lot of powerful democrats just don't want him to run again in 2024. it seems most americans want nothing to do with a trump-biden rematch. what do you make of these numbers? >> well, i'd say a couple things. the first thing, joe, it's interesting, that if you look at the situation of the two respective parties, right now, you have an announced candidate, donald trump, who has essentially, so far, frozen the field. think back to this time in 2019 on the democratic side, when democrats were out of the white house. you had a dozen candidates

already in the race by february of 2019, this same time in the cycle. on the republican side, donald trump is in, and the only person -- there's a bunch of people circling -- but the only person who has clearly express in getting into the race to run against him is nikki haley, who we'll see get in shortly. on the democratic side, we have no announced candidates. joe biden hasn't made up his mind yet, but people presume he is going to run. again, the democratic side thinks, well, joe biden is going to run and will be the nominee. the two parties are reacting in different ways. the democratic insiders, we've seen reporting on this the past few days, democratic insiders are rallying around joe biden. we just heard about the shift in the primary schedule in a very biden-friendly way. the whole party, among the internal part of the party, is all for biden and ready to fall in line, everyone though he hasn't announced yet. on the republican side, we see the opposite. republican insiders are

increasingly rallying against donald trump, even though they have no announced candidate and other stocking horses to get behind. we now see this announcement from the koch brothers, saying one of the most influential people in the conservative movement say it is time to move on from donald trump and we'll put our money where our mouths are. the parties are in radically different situations. to your last point, it seems the actual voters might be, in both parties, might want to see someone new, someone other than joe biden or donald trump. >> i don't think they'll get it on the democratic party. the republican party, though, you bring up a great point. jonathan lemire, the fact the koch network, so powerful in the republican party, is saying,

hey, we don't usually get involved in primaries but we're getting involved now. it reminds me so much of 2014. i don't know if you remember. 2010, tea partiers had a massive time. 2012, more tea party type candidates were getting nominated, and republicans started losing races they should never have lost statewide. in 2014, the koch network, the u.s. chamber of commerce, other sort of mainstream republican outfits said, "enough." they started getting involved in early primaries. i remember an alabama one being a special election very early on where they said, "we are going in and stopping this craziness and madness." that's what they did. looks like that's what the koch brothers or the koch network is looking to do now. it's one thing when politicians say donald trump shouldn't run again. explain how powerful and how important the koch donor network

is to the republican party in deciding who is going to be the next nominee. >> extraordinarily powerful. they have -- they are some of the biggest donors in the gop field. they have bankrolled lots of successful candidates. certainly, there will be candidates now vying for their influence. they're not going to back donald trump. they say they want to ideally support just one candidate for president in 2024. they've said it is not going to be trump. that's significant. right now, of course, all eyes are turning towards tallahassee and florida governor ron desantis, who at this moment, is considered the favorite in terms of the trump alternative. there's a lot of variants in the polls between desantis and trump. some polls have them neck and neck, some still have trump with a sizable lead. desantis, at least at this moment as we sit february 2023, is perceived to have the best chance to beat trump. as we've talked about on this show a lot, the larger the republican field is, the probably better it is for trump. the more candidates who jump in.

trump has the base of supporters who are going to follow him everywhere. there is a sense here, this from the koch brothers, it's almost a signal. we want to back just one guy. we don't want the field to be too big. they understand it'd be to trump's advantage. desantis hasn't declared his status yet, but he is anticipated to do so in the months ahead. nikki haley looks to be the first in, probably in the next week or two. she'll announce she is, in fact, taking on trump, who has, you know, his campaign off to a sluggish start. he is starting to ramp things up now. so this is a very significant earthquake in republican politics. the koch brothers who tried to keep trump at arm's length in recent years now full out against him. >> eugene daniels, any word from the white house in terms of how they feel for this lackluster desire for joe biden to run again, in a biden-trump matchup? i know even from conversations at dinner tables with friends,

it's a conversation. it's whether or not he should run again. and my opinion, my answer is, of course he will, especially if donald trump is there. he'll make sure he crushes him like a bug. what are they saying inside the white house? >> kind of the same thing, right? >> okay. >> what you hear from folks when you bring up these polls, folks in the white house, is they talk about exactly what you and joe talked about. joe biden has been underestimated. what happened in the primary, they talk about what's happened his entire presidency. they talk about how we were wrong on some of the ways when we talked about the legislation that probably wasn't going to get passed and his ability to coalesce and bring groups together. >> yeah. >> they feel very confident he is someone who will be able to do that again. between donald trump and joe biden, donald trump has a problem joe biden doesn't have. no one serious is talking about running for president against joe biden. he hasn't announced yet. we're expecting it the next couple months. he is in a much better place, to put it mildly, than donald trump is.

i was talking to someone in the white house the other day, and they were saying, you know, as a country, it looks like we might deserve a trump versus biden white house -- or rematch base on how we behaved over the last decade. when you talk to voters, they don't want that. >> maybe they're tired of that. >> tired of it. these are two very old men. these are white men. they don't look like a lot of the rest of the country. their politics aren't always in line with the stronger and louder group of their base in their parties. >> all right. we'll keep monitoring those attitudes. we want to get to another top story. the navy is working to recover the remains of the chinese spy balloon that flew from one end of the u.s. to the other before being shot down just off the coast of south carolina. nbc news correspondent monica alba has the details. >> reporter: possible debris from the chinese surveillance balloon recovered near myrtle beach, as the u.s. navy combs a

7-mile wide debris field in the atlantic ocean. beach-goers urged to stay alert. >> i'm here to say if debris washes up, we need to know about it right away to secure that and make sure we get that to our federal partners. >> they shot it! >> reporter: the balloon shot down saturday afternoon from a single missile from a fighter jet. >> here we go. >> got it. >> boom. >> whew! >> oh, my gosh, it is going straight for it. >> we have eyes on the balloon falling. >> reporter: for days, the spy balloon's movements captivated the nation. first detected by the biden administration in alaska on january 28th, before briefly entering canadian air space, then crossing back over into montana, wyoming, kansas, missouri, and, finally, the carolinas. despite flying over several

sensitive military sites, u.s. officials tell nbc news they took action to weaken china's surveillance capabilities. also determining the balloon posed no physical threat to people on the ground. >> i told them to shoot it down. >> reporter: after consulting the pentagon, president biden authorized the military operation wednesday. >> they said, let's wait until the safest place to do it. >> reporter: the decision praised by his secretary of transportation. >> you saw a great example of the coordination and cooperation between a lot of different players in our government to make sure everything happened safely. >> reporter: and roundly criticized by republicans, who argued he acted too slowly. >> presidents have the ability to go before a camera, go before the nation, and basically explain these things early on. i don't understand why he wouldn't do that. and that is the beginning of dereliction of duty. >> the president taking it down over the atlantic is like the quarterback sort of -- sort of tackling the quarterback after the game is over. >> reporter: this isn't the first time these balloons have

flown over the u.s., including at least three during the trump administration and one at the start of the biden presidency, according to a senior official. none of them lasting as long as this one, though. it's not the only current concern worldwide, with another detected over latin america. >> terrible football analogy, like tackling a quarterback after? no, it is like waiting for the receiver to clear the zone defense in the secondary and waiting for him to go to the out pattern to throw the ball. it's all about timing. especially if you've got belichick on the sideline saying -- >> i'm so confused. >> -- don't throw the ball until i tell you to throw the ball. and don't throw it early because bad stuff could happen. and dereliction of duty? my god, marco rubio, did he -- how did he vote, by the way, when donald trump wouldn't send the ukrainians weapons that were approved by congress unless he

got zelenskyy promising him to dig up dirt on his political opponent? was there any talk of dereliction of duty then? was there any talk of dereliction of duty a thousand other times when he stood in front of the world, when jonathan lemire asked, "do you trust vladimir putin more, or do you trust the intel agencies, the u.s. intel agencies more?" trump said, "vladimir putin." i never heard rubio say dereliction of duty. again, it's a clown show, an absolute clown show. i wish they understood how much they were hurting themselves. they're not hurting the country. you go around the world. i mean, people i talk to understand the united states is more powerful than ever. in fact, if there are any complaints, it's that we are too powerful. that's what i hear. you americans, you know, you throw your weight around. your military is stronger than

it's ever been before, and you think this, that or the other. it's just, again, this hating on america by republicans if they're not in the white house. it's getting old. david, we're going to turn the page on that because we don't want you to talk about domestic politics here. we want you to talk about the balloon. biden had said he wanted it shot down on wednesday. pentagon officials said, let's just wait. so couple of questions here. first of all, did they really want him to wait because they didn't want people on the ground to be injured? there's a lot of open space in montana and across the plain states. that's number one. number two, did the pentagon fear any additional damage if they let it go safely overseas and shoot it down? >> so to the two questions you asked, joe, yes, i think there was genuine concern about the risk of debris falling and

hitting people. one estimate i heard was that in montana, there were maybe 2,000 people who would be at risk from the breakup and fall of these fairly substantial payloads that were being carried by the balloon. i think the key to the decision that they made was to minimize the risk of damage from a debris fall and maximize the likely benefit of collection, of the intelligence equipment that was being carried by the balloon: the opportunity to examine it, to reengineer it, to understand better what it was the chinese mission was all about was crucial. they thought, is there any way we can lower the altitude of the balloon and catch it with some kind of high-tech butterfly net? >> a trap. >> answer, no, there is not a way to do that. >> okay. >> but they thought carefully about this. the decision was made to let it continue to fly over our coastal waters, and then in that

controlled area, take it down. they did it. the only worry they said, i'm told, was you can shoot right through a balloon. goes in one end and out the other, and it keeps going. it could have gone another 500 or 600 miles out to sea, making it harder to recover the debris. i think, joe, that's the decision they made. like you, i think the most damaging thing to the united states -- because the intelligence collection from this balloon is not significantly different from what i know, from what the chinese get every day from their low-orbit satellites -- is the cacophony of criticism from members of our own government. people talking as though we're a terrible weakling. you vaguely remember historically, right, there was a time when our country's sovereignty was threatened by a foreign adversary, and everybody united united and waited for the

president to take action at the time it was appropriate. the total opposite happened. when i see mike turner with his crack about taking down the quarterback after the play is over, you think, wait a minute, isn't he chairman of the intelligence committee? isn't that the committee that stands together around national security issues? >> and understands them. >> and understands them. >> sorry. but -- >> yeah. that's the damage, self-inflicted. >> yeah. i mean, you bring up such a great point. there's so much more damage these republicans are causing to the united states, making our diplomats' jobs more difficult across the globe. i'll tell you, david, i know you hear this all the time. i hear it if i'm talking to leaders in europe, if i'm talking to leaders in the middle east. i always have to warn them, and i warn them as a friend, i say, don't get distracted by what you see on american television, on cable news, on the screeching

and the howling. i said, because everybody makes that mistake. osama bin laden made the mistake. hussein made that mistake. you can go back to the '30s and early '40s, hitler made that mistake. they make the mistake of believing that americans are more divided than they really are because of the harshness of the partisanship. but you were so right. i spend half of my time when leaders explaining what is really happening in the united states and how they need to tune out these voices. it's a -- and i know you've been doing it for years. but it's fascinating. you're right, the most damage done here was done by republicans who are creating chaos at a time when we were trying to figure out our -- pentagon officials were trying to figure out the best way to take down this balloon and get the payload. >> well, it's unfortunate.

it's the spectacle of, you know, old-fashioned floating across the country while everyone watching is irresistible for republicans, the easy target. the take away was, this was a net benefit in terms of intelligence. there is something we don't understand about the chinese decision making process. why now? what a strange time to conduct this mission. i have a lot of my sources who say, david, don't forget, in the real world, sometimes people just don't coordinate policy well. it may be the chinese military didn't consult adequately with xi jinping. that's certainly happened to the united states during the cuban missile crisis, when plans were sent to cuba without president kennedy knowing about it, believe it or not. so that happens. but i think that's the thing to study, why on the eve of the

summit trip by antony blinken, our secretary of state, did the chinese choose to move this mission forward? did they try to stop it and couldn't? that's another possibility. those are the things i'll be focused on. >> jonathan lemire, that's one of the possibilities that david ignatius looks at in his piece, perhaps, somehow, they wanted to sabotage the visit. antony blinken not making the trip is sending a message, a response. >> it certainly is, mika. the white house felt that it would be inappropriate to send him right now, that this meeting would be dominated by discussion of the balloon, as mentioned earlier. there is a hope to reschedule it down the road because, to david's point, it is a puzzling moment for this to have occurred. china has been on a bit of a charm offensive in recent months. ties warmer between beijing and washington since president biden and president xi met in bali at the g20 in november. in fact, there had been talk

that blinken in beijing was going to be able to meet with xi jinping, which is, you know, not usually how protocol works. a head of state doesn't usually meet with a cabinet official, but the chinese were going to do so, as a signal of how much they wanted this visit to happen. it's gone away, at least for the time being. pentagon officials have picked up at least some of the debris from this balloon with a payload the size of three buses. that could have caused real damage on the ground off the coast of south carolina. that search is continuing. of course, they will be studying it with great interest in the days and weeks ahead. they feel they've got a real opportunity here to learn more about what the chinese were up to. >> definitely more to come on this. let's turn now, after new york city's coldest night of the year, mayor eric adams spent that night warming up with hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in an unannounced visit to their temporary home inside

the brooklyn cruise terminal. a video captured the mayor playing a world cup soccer video with one of the men as others cheered during his overnight show of support for the recently relocated migrants. >> we're going to stay the night with our brothers here, just let them know we're all in this together. this is how you get through things. >> the mayor arrived around 11:00 on friday night, slept on a cot alongside the migrants, ate breakfast with them, and left around 9:00 a.m. mayor adams joins us now. thank you so much for joining us this morning. what was the message you were hoping to send by spending the night with the migrants in your city? >> it was a reflection of how people were there for my family as a child. we moved from location to location. we slept on the rooms of our relatives and loved ones until mommy was able to stabilize the family. it also shows just the real

impact of the uncertainty of housing and security. i wanted to go there and show that the coldest night of the year, and, you know what, baby, it was cold out. >> yeah. >> we had a warm place for them. we were able to talk throughout the night. we were able to get up early in the morning, have breakfast, and hear from them. they are thankful. they're pursuing the american dream. they understood we had to move them from the hotel after opening 81 hotels because children and families should be in hotels. they were extremely appreciative of the city. >> yeah, tell me more about what they shared with you about their stories, their journeys, and, i mean, given the difficulties, really, finding a shelter for the migrants, many of whom were flown in to new york to prove a point, i guess. what were they saying to you? >> you know, that's a great question. there's really a, i believe, documentary, a book, a lesson

for our young people. number one, think about it. january 1st, 2022, we had approximately 45,000 people in our shelter system. one year, we received an additional 43,000 people in one year. we had to find housing for them, food, health care, educate their children. when they spoke with me, they all said the same thing, we want to work. we want to be part of this american experience. they want to learn english. we're going to incorporate, while they're there, english lessons. they want to make sure to say to the american people, thank you. you know, people want to give the impression that some agitators wanted to create an environment that these men did not understand the role they had to play, but they were very much part of how we shifted from the hotel to the current location. >> eugene. >> mr. mayor, eugene daniels,

good to see you. at a political event we had, you told my colleague that the white house needed to make sure that the city's mayors needed to get all the support they need and deserve when dealing with these kinds of issues. have you talked to the white house about your concerns, about maybe the lack of resources that you're getting from them to deal with this crisis? >> yes, we have. repeatedly, throughout the last few months, and we are engaged in real conversation. i really want to take my hat off to senator schumer, congressman jeffries and the new york delegation. they were able to get over $80,000. we're projecting $2.8 million in the next fiscal year. this is a major financial impact and burden on our city, and we are hoping that the white house understands this is a national problem and must be resolved. again, it must be resolved in a real way. congress must pass comprehensive

immigration reform, something that the republicans have really avoided doing. >> mr. mayor, good morning. jonathan lemire. we wanted to shift topics and ask about a difficult story in your city. an off duty nypd officer shot saturday night in the head. he is listed, last we heard, in critical condition, fighting for his life. can you provide an update on his condition, but also anything you can tell us about the circumstances of why he was shot? is there a suspect that's been identified or brought into custody? >> we are lifting the family up in prayers. right now, the family is deciding their decisions and he's still in the care of the medical professionals. he was out purchaing a car like many of us do. he answered an ad. it appears something went terribly wrong. i bet you you're going to find a

common denominator. i bet you he's one of the 1,700 people who are extremely violent in our city. that's why we're pressing for reform, to make sure we take dangerous people off our street. we removed thousands of guns off the street last year. we have to deal with the dangerous people who have these guns. >> all right. new york city mayor eric adams, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. it's good to see you. >> thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," a shakeup within ukraine's leadership. president zelenskyy says the country's defense minister is being replaced. we'll get a live report from kyiv this morning. plus, a massive earthquake has left more than 1,000 people dead across turkey and syria. we'll have the latest on the search and rescue efforts that are going on right now. also ahead, the 1619 project is back in the headlines with the release of a new six-part

docu-series on hulu. pulitzer prize-winning journalist nikole hannah-jones joins us next with a look at that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪3, 4♪ ♪ ♪hey♪ ♪ ♪are you ready for me♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪

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♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ the very first enslaved africans were brought here over 400 year as ago. since then, no part of america's story has been untouched by the legacy of slavery. this is the 1619 project. >> "new york times." >> the 1619 project. >> the legacy of slaves. >> my father flew a flag in our front yard. >> one thing about dad, he was patriotic. >> part of the united states army. >> they served their country, but, hey, you serve your country doesn't mean your country is going to serve you. ♪ fighting for freedom for so long ♪ >> black americans have always been foundational to the idea of

american freedom. >> it's black history month. "new york times" award-winning "1619 project" is taking the leap from the page to the screen in a new six-part docu-series. with us now, the executive producer and host of the hulu docu-series, nikole hannah-jones, the creator of the 1619 project and pulitzer prize winner for domestic correspondence, covering racial injustice for "the new york times." thank you so much for being with us. first of all, let me ask about your concerns about taking this project from the page to the screen. and when you saw all the episodes, were you able to exhale and go, whew, we did it? >> thank you. thanks so much for having me on and always being willing to talk about this project. i had a lot of concerns. i mean, i'm a print journalist, old-school print journalist. how does one translate these

really dense, historical essays to the screen? i had an amazing team with roger ross williams, another executive producer and sashana guy who knew how to do this. the hardest part is watching me interview people on camera. i felt very exposed. >> yeah, it's -- that is -- it's always been a challenge for me. but as you can tell, i'm not as self-conscious as i should be. as we go through these, i'd love you to start with democracy, then you move through a general episode on race, then music, then capitalism, then fear. i mean, you really do move through so many topics that touch on so many parts of the black experience in america. first of all, i've got to ask, how did you narrow it down to the topics that you addressed

and discussed? >> yes, well, what we were hoping to do with this, obviously, is reach a whole new audience who maybe never heard of the 1619 project or haven't heard the essays in the book. this project has always been making an argument about america. that if you want to understand the united states today, you have to understand slavery and its legacy. we picked the episodes based on what are the most kind of expansive, foundational ideas and institutions in america? how might we use this documentary to help people understand them? it really wasn't that hard. these were the ones that we felt were most critical. of course, the final episode, "justice," is an argument for reparations. if we acknowledge this history, then we have to try to make repair. >> yeah, you know, i love -- i've loved having you on the show, loved talking to you,

because we obviously come from very different backgrounds. i've read some of your speeches, and i'm like, oh, my god, she's so pessimistic about the future. and i'm so optimistic about the future, right, for good reasons. i'm a white guy, born in the middle class, middle of american century. then it's 1619 versus 1776. but instead of versus, you know, my thought has always been, and you shared this thought, you know, we can engage in dialectical thinking. and the two can co-exist side by side and with a synthesis, we become better as a nation. we see, what i talk about on this show, the miracle of 2020, where it was black women in philadelphia, black women in fulton county, black women in milwaukee, black women in detroit that, in my opinion,

helped save american democracy when they were the very ones excluded from it the longest. >> absolutely. i mean, this is why i always love being in conversation with you about this. we don't have to come from the same place. we don't even have to have the same identical outlook on america to understand that 1619 is important. it's important for us to understand the united states and in 1776. if we want to have a fuller, more honest grappling with the united states, we have to teal with all of it. we don't actually have to come from the same point of view, and we don't all have to watch "the 1619 project" and agree with its conclusions. it is a conversation worth having. it is not a dangerous conversation. to me, it's a conversation that helps us come closer together because we can see america from the perspective of those who have so often been left out. yet, as you know, in the opening

episode, "democracy," we fought and believed in the highest ideals of this country. i think that is a lesson that all of us as americans can take. if we have this more expanive view of our fellow citizens and believe the critique of our country is the highest call of patriotism, we might be able to build the country we all say we want. >> congratulations on the series. eugene daniels here. every time you've done something like this with "the 1619 project," have conversations about race, actual, honest conversations about race, we see this backlash. we have continued to see a backlash from certain parts of this country, as black people have tried to say, "hey, no, let us into this conversation about history because black history is american history." i guess, talk about continuing to do this work as the backlash continues. you start seeing it at the highest levels of government. >> yes, it's become very predictable now.

you know, now that thedocumentary series is out, we're seeing the same backlash ginned up. we've already seen it. what else can you say that hasn't been said? there is something much more central happening, which is, that the history of black americans is so inconvenient to the narrative of america, that there are, you know, powerful interests that haven't ever wanted us to grapple truthfully. that's why we have governor desantis banning ap african-american studies in florida. that's why we have all these so-called anti-critical race theory laws that are trying to make it more difficult to teach about racism and teach about what black americans have experienced. because if you acknowledge that, then you have to acknowledge that we were founded on these great ideals, but we have not lifted up to them. so, to me, the backlash is a sign of the impact. the backlash is a sign, you know, of who doesn't want us to be grappling honestly with our

history. the reason that is is if we are more honest about our history, we choose different policies, right? we understand that so much of the inequality we see has been architected. if we want to undo it, we can. >> david. >> david ignatius. nikole, congratulations on the new tv project. just want to ask you to step back a bit and speak with us about whether, broadly speaking, you still see, in martin luther king's words, the arc of history bending toward justice on these issues. as you look at america, are people adjusting to, thinking about, being challenged by these ideas, and are we moving in a positive direction or do you see something that's frozen? >> well, you know, of course i have tremendous respect for dr. king, but what i would argue is that the arc of the universe

doesn't bend one way or another. we bend it, right? so when we think that it bends naturally towards justice, then i think it really alleviates us of the necessity to act in ways that bring about the country that we want. so if it bends towards justice, it is because we have made a decision as a people that we want to be a country that is more just. and we are in a challenging period right now. we saw the racial reckoning of 2020. it was very short lived. then we saw really a racial backlash. i think we're still in that period. so we've always had these kind of two souls. dr. king also said america is a schizophrenic nation. we can hold opposing ideas in our head at the same time. what we have to decide as americans is which country do we want to be? do we want to be the country that begins in 1619 with the practice of slavery, or the country conceived in 1776 with the ideals of liberty and

equality? it's unknown. we're always seeing the tension and fight between the two halves. >> nikole, obviously, so many people criticized "the 1619 project" that have never read it. they've seen a couple tweets on it, yet, they're world-renowned experts on "the 1619 project." i'm sure the same will be true for the hulu series, as well. if you could, talk to somebody that hasn't read "the 1619 project" and might not be thinking about watching this, and just talk to them. explain to them why it is so important that they give it a chance, they take a look at it, they open their mind. >> yes, thank you. i mean, that really is my argument. it's just see for yourself. come to us with an open mind. don't allow other people to shape whether you think this is a worthy endeavor or not and whether you want to engage with

it. i think every episode, people will be enlightened and surprised. they will see the care that we took in creating this project. and this is not the story of black america. this is the story of america. one of the things, for instance, in the capitalism episode, joe, is we don't argue that all capitalism is bad. we say there are different forms of capitalism, and that all american workers of all races, in many ways, are hurt by a system that was founded through the most extraordinary exploitation of labor. so this is the american story. again, i'm not typically a hopeful person, but i think, ultimately, the series is hopeful. what it says is we have constructed the inequality in our society, but we have the ability to construct a more fair society. if we understood that black americans have believed in this country with a fervor that belies their treatment, then we see the way out. you know, when you, the other few weeks ago, were talking

about the role black women played in saving democracy, and i texted you because i just so appreciated that framing and acknowledgment. that people think "the 1619 project" is not patriotic. i don't argue it either way, it's not the role of a journalist. but we can see in the example of black people what a true love for country is, which is to fight to hold your country to account and to believe in your country, even when your country doesn't seem to believe in you. >> well, and the great ironies, that it was black women that helped save madisonian, madisonian democracy, right? >> yes. >> and it was your father and other black men that went across the world to put their lives on the line to save an american democracy that, at the time, didn't even recognize them as full citizens. i mean, that's a remarkable faith in america that i'm afraid

too many white people would not show. i mean, right now, my god, you know, we saw during the pandemic, if somebody suggested you wear a mask in a store, you had people running through stores, tearing up displays. but you're talking about -- you're actually talking about men going to fight wars because of a love of a country that, again, didn't even accept their full civil rights when they came home. >> absolutely. i mean, this has been the example that black americans have set again and again, fighting, one, in the name of democracy abroad and fighting for democracy for all citizens at home. as we argue in the project, so many marginalized people have sought and achieved their rights because of the black resistance struggle. again, this is the american story. i just think that, so often, we

haven't wanted to grapple with this history. people don't want to feel guilty. there's nothing in this project that argues, you know, that white people today are responsible for what white people did a long time ago. but what we are arguing is that we're responsible to understand what happened a long time ago. and the way that continues to shape our society today. >> yeah. yes, we are and our children are and it'll make them better citizens for understanding. the new episodes of "the 1619 project" are available thursday on hulu. nikole hannah-jones, thank you so much, as always, for being with us, and good luck. >> thank you. >> thank you, thank you so much. >> thanks very much. coming up on "morning joe," it wasn't just a seat being double booked at a texas airport. it was an entire runway. that caused a near miss between two planes in austin. >> come on. >> yikes. those details are ahead on "morning joe."

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philippines. >> uh-huh. >> we'll have an opportunity of bases that are closer to taiwan, japan is moving its own ability to muse military force, a little closer to taiwan. so there's a strong position. i hope that doesn't lead to conflict, i'd say. but is there was a period when the united states was back on its heels. >> right. >> china was rising so quickly, growing so quickly and i think that period is now over. >> i just wonder, you're the only person i could ask this to. what do you think my dad would be saying right now? >> your dad was a person of measured judgment. i think he would think, sort of second-guessing, about shooting down a balloon too late was ridiculous. i think he would say the challenge of the rest of our life times is to deal with this rise in china with a war. he'd think very carefully how do could that, your father was a tough man, that would involve

defense. >> eugene daniels, tomorrow night, what are you looking at? >> absolutely. state of the union, how we'll see president biden. how he's going to thread that needle, talking about in his words moderate republicans are bad for the public. also, this is an administration just in the last months before, midterms, learn how to sell themselves to the american people. >> yeah, they have. >> and a way that makes sense. and how does they do that with the state of the union and make that the runway for the possible announcement to run again. >> it's going to be so interesting, joe. nbc sports soccer analyst, roger bennett, we've got highlights to show this weekend including, of course, liverpool losing again, which is shocking -- well, not so shock be anymore, unfortunately. but first of all, big news out of man city. tell us about it. >> yes. just within the last hour, the premier league has charged their

title winner for the last five titles of financial improprieties of a grand scale, over a course of nine years, inflating the amount of revenue they brought in, minimizing what they were paying their star, and they are threatening to dock points or even expel the greatest team. this is an unprecedented new reality. the government in britain were about to issue a white paper about how to intercede in the financial bend in football. saying we've got this. i've never seen anything like it. let's give it to the football league. the premier is the defending champions manchester city. of the 50 minutes, harry kane.

up there with the churchill, darwins, your robin leaches. two of them, 67th goal. a club record. you know the old saying british people given the choice between their own success and your failure will always choose your failure. the fact that he was able to overcome this, nevertheless, harry cairn, he possessed it. and the post. and pep guardiola, with the momentum, when you face problems, no amount of abu dhabi can console. but the fairy tale league is arsenal. wanting to extend their lead, they travel to everton, who are a serious football team in the same way george santos is a serious congressman. look at them, scoring like a chinese spy balloon on an intelligence-gathering mission. the only goal.

borderline. biblical to see everton win a football game. must have been like watching eight nights of lights from one tiny oil. he's essentially brexit in human form. and to texas' weston mckinney, became the third american on that squad. managed by jesse marsch. and going down 1-nil on the day. but joe, our nation's embrace of football, we've got a saying move over dallas cowboys, league united is an incredible team. america taking over the premier league in unprecedented fashion. >> that is really something. so, i've got to ask you about liverpool. they lost again this weekend badly. and their form has been horrible. of course, this is just the next season after they were chasing

four titles, unprecedented four titles, up until the very end. what's your best theory -- what's the best theory of people that are following this closely? are they are just exhausted from last year? what's going on? >> well, actually, the birds went said it's time to be born, time to die, time to plant, time to reap, and a time to play dismal football. confounding. they play everton, crosstown rivals next weekend, joe, magnificent. >> all right. mika, what do we have coming up? >> coming up, i've got a question, what do the dodo bird, psychedelic plants and meats all in have common? >> i have no idea. >> and we'll speak to a former cia officer with the theft of chinese espionage, after that spy balloon floating over the

u.s. was shot down over the weekend as well as the utterly stupid response from some republicans on twitter. and then we get a report from kyiv, a meta shake-up among the zelenskyy administration. we're back in two minutes. brin. it can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within 2 hours... ...without worrying if it's too late or where you are. unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks a protein believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. migraine pain relief starts with u. learn how abbvie could help you save. ask about ubrelvy, the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. with unitedhealthcare my sister has a whole team

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♪♪ it is the top of the third hour of "morning joe" on this monday, february 6th. jonathan lemire is still with us. and we begin this hour overseas. the massive earthquake in turkey and syria that is known so far to have killed more than 1,300 people. and destroyed more than 3,000 buildings. the quake magnitude 7.8, was felt up to 600 miles away. and there are fears the number of dead could rise sharply as rescuers search for people trapped under the rubble. turkey is in a state of

emergency and the u.s. has already offered assistance. nbc news' chief correspondent keir simmons has the latest. >> reporter: whole buildings collapsing from the earthquake. unable to stand against the quake, almost 8 on the richter scale. the morning light revealing devastation and wreckage. a toddler in syria, bloody but conscious, pulled from the rubble. and other survivors taken from collapsed buildings, lucky to be alive. three huge tremors, snapping street lights and sending power lines waving. the moments recorded on security camera footage. this is one of the region's worst quakes in decades striking just after people slept just after 4:00 a.m. the quake hit in a huge area of turkey and northern syria. an area war-torn with hundreds of refugees.

the tremors felt as far as beirut, jerusalem and gaza. and syria, they're searching for survivors in opposition-held territory. hospitals overwhelmed. >> we need help. we need the international community to support us. >> reporter: turkey's president erdogan said rescuers will be joined by troops to search for survivors but they have a vast area to recover. those groups calling for silence, as they try to ask for trapped survivors. asking someone what color are you wearing, are you wearing pink? a frantic search another in the rubble. the white house offering to provide any and all assistance to turkey, in a statement left out any reference to the u.s. working directly with syria. >> and a second earthquake with magnitude 7.6 has struck southern turkey, less than 12

hours after the first massive quake. we'll be monitoring these developments and bring you the latest developments. we also have the latest developments on the spy balloon shot down over the east coast. officials are searching the waters avenue of south carolina this morning for the wreckage of that balloon. nbc news' chief correspondent andrea mitchell has the latest from the search and the growing fallout from washington to beijing. >> reporter: as navy divers search for debris, this video shows what appears to be part of the balloon being brought back to shore sunday. ships are canvassing a ten-mile debris field in shallow waters with the fbi on hand to start analyzing the wreckage as police seek help from beachgoers. >> if any debris washes up, we need to know about it right away. >> reporter: defense officials say a payload balloon over the size of three buses firsted move in over norway.

and entered canada, over idaho on wednesday. flying at 60,000 feet. two senior officials tell nbc news u-2 spy planes circled the balloons. capturing images and data. china said it was a weather balloon that drifted off course but the u.s. said it was a spy balloon with china managing its direction. although the balloon through over montana which 150 missile sites u.s. officials say they mitigated surveillance capabilities without providing specifics on how. once the balloon reached the atlantic coast it was shot down by a single missile from an f-22 fighter jet. >> boom! >> we have eyes on the balloon falling. >> reporter: a spokesperson from the chinese ministry responding this morning. calling it an unacceptable and irresponsible action. china raised eyebrows over the weekend saying they retain the right to respond further.

meanwhile, republicans slammed president biden for not shooting it down earlier. >> president taking it down over the atlantic is like the quarterback, sort of like tackling the quarterback after the game is over. >> reporter: on saturday, president biden said the military advisers did not want to risk falling debris. >> the pentagon shot it down as soon as possible. they decided over water. >> joining us former cia officer mark polyopoulos. former staff at cia and department of defense, jeremy bash, an nbc news national analyst. and senior vice president for asia and korea declare at the center for strategic and international studies victor todd joins us this morning. >> joe. >> so, mark, let me begin with you. we've heard much about the grave

damage from republican senators who are acting like idiots with guns on their lap posing for social media, making reckless remarks left and right. i'm curious, what's your make on -- i mean, look at this, seriously. i mean, just look at the idiots here. it would be unthinkable even two, three years ago, for people to act like fools that are members of the united states senate. so, we're supposed to listen to these people instead of the pentagon who's advising the president of the united states to take a deep breath and wait until they're ready to take it down. what's your reaction? >> so, joe, you know, all i could think of, you know when i saw on social media, pictures of ar-15 toting -- you know, individuals who should be responsible. these are members of the senate, members of the house of

representatives. all i could think of this is a pending "south park" episode. this is performative nonsense. what i'd like to do, every person who did something like that, let's have them write a 3,000-word essay on what they mean. with pointing your gun up to the sky. this is not helpful. this is a sign of weakness for the united states because it show a country undivided. it was unhelpful. they really ought to know better because some of them are briefed on what actually occurred. from my view, the biden administration -- i look at the adage from my world, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. what does that mean, slow down in a crisis. ultimately, i think it was handled by the administration quite well. >> jeremy bash, the administration did what politicians usually say they want administrations to do,

follow the advice of the pentagon, of the generals, admirals. certainly, joe biden got criticized for not doing that enough in his withdrawal from afghanistan. here, he told them on wednesday, he wanted it shot down. they said, hold off. let's wait until it's in the best place. >> that's right. joe, the commanding general general van hirk and general milly told them to hold off, they were able to jam the communications link of this airship. there was no safe way to bring down three buses' worth of metal. heaven forbid it fall on a kindergarten or kill americans. they said the safest way it to wait take counterintelligence and shot it down over the water. that's the first time, joe that we've sought at another country's aircraft in the united

states since world war ii. this was no small matter to do this. i think the president acted responsibly and absolutely correctly. >> victor, help us try to sort through china's actions here. it seems the xi administration over the past three, four year had so many self-inflicted wounds. they wanted the meeting with blinken. they've been trying to have a bit of -- some people call it, a charm offensive. but the timing for this, for the chinese, very unfortunate. what do you think happened? >> well, i mean, i agree with you, joe, i mean, the chinese wanted the meeting with blinken quite badly. it would have been the first meeting by a secretary of state since mike pompeo went in 2018. xi and biden bet on the sideline in asian bali in november to try to put a hold on the tensions

that were heightening. and part of a series of xi that has gone wrong for xi, since he's gotten his third term in office, remember all of the covid, they've since reversioned the covid policy. now, they have a huge epidemic in the country. and now poor performance. xi looked like he stood 6 feet tall but clearly there are problems and this is a huge embarrassment for him. >> and it's been absolutely -- we bviously look inward in this country, our own challenges. but what a horrific three years. three, four years for the chinese. are they trying to adjust in realtime. this charm offensive wanting to get blinken over there. messing it up with this balloon debacle. are you seeing examples of where they're trying to move forward, close the chapter on the last

three years. >> yeah, i do. i mean, it's a domestic promise, but they also see successes by the united states in bringing together countries to stand up against chinese economic coercion. they're fake sort of capital financing deals for major structure projects in the global south that are starting to fall flat on their face. all of the pressure they're putting on taiwan. and the coalition growing in eastern asia to help to defend itself. i think china is seeing successes and trying to real the united states in to some form of policy. >> jeremy, on the subject of china, there was good reporting this weekend from "the wall street journal" reviewing customs data. which shows that china is still

promoting moscow needs, stopping to get around sanctions in order to give navigation equipment. stuff that airlines can use to jam it. basically from other countries that have already been sanctioned. talk to us about that as well. that china may want to have warmer ties with the best but they're doing, you know, exactly what the west asked them not to do and help vladimir putin? >> that's right, jonathan, it was only a year ago during the beijing olympics that vladimir putin and xi jinping got together. and for the first time to include china in planning guidance. i think the biden administration and other allies have done an excellent job of keeping xi jinping mostly on the sideline. they have not provided direct military support to the russians in ukraine. one way the two issues are connected if you ask people in

the indo-pacific, what's the best way to deter china from talking taiwan by 2027, the answer comes from south korea, win in ukraine. that's exactly what the nato and allies are doing delivering this that putin has not been able to subjugate the ukrainians, not decapitate the government and do nothing less. >> mark, what do you think, given the conflict of interests that jonathan lemire brought up, what's the best way to deal with china? >> well, we need to talk to them. and there's no doubt, while secretary blinken delayed his trip. jeremy noted that china is important vis-a-vis ukraine. let's not forget when russian president vladimir putin makes these threats about the use of

nuclear weapons one of the ways we have to deter that is from his allies, the chinese and indians. and it comes from the scandal from the balloon, espionage is the second oldest profession. chinese spy on us, and we spy on them. ultimately, if this starts a discussion on chinese espionage activity, when it comes to the balloon, the balloon is 200th on the list of what they do. there's a committee on the hill that's going to dive into this. china is -- clearly the national defense strategy is a pacing threat. we have to take this seriously. but the balloon is not the hill we die on. >> mark, thank you very much. former chief of staff at the cia department of defense, jeremy bash and senior vice president for asia and the center for strategic and international studying, victor cha, thank you all, very much, for being with us this morning.

all right. a former prospective aide is charging congressman george santos of sexual harassment in a letter sent to the house committee derrick myers accused george santos of groping him while he worked for him. the congressman proceeded -- oh, my gosh to take his hand -- oh, that happened. and then his job offer was rescinded days later. nbc news has not independently corroborated the allegations. and claiming he was hired and then told to work as a volunteer until his payroll paperwork went through. santos' office confirmed to news outlets that they were in the process of hiring myers, they say he was terminated due to concerns over a past charge of wiretapping, my god, when he worked as a journalist in ohio. last year, myers published courtroom audio yesterday,

testimony that someone else recorded and sent to him. a spokesperson for congressman santos did not immediately respond to nbc news' request. and congresswoman susan wild has confirmed that the committee received the letter declined any further comment. honestly. meanwhile, along with being a self-proclaimed star college volleyball player, congressman george santos was also a broadway producer, at least that's what the embattled lawmaker allegedly told potential donors while running for office in 2021. "bloomberg" reports that santos reported that he was a producer on -- get this -- the "spider-man" production, "spider-man turn off the dark." the office of santos confirmed

he did not work on "spider-man" the play only ran a short time and was plagued with technical issues and actor injuries and lost millions of dollars during its run. a spokesman said of all of the tribulations the producers of spiertszman: turn off the dark had to endure. we are very pleased, proud working with george santos was not one of them. my god. florida today has a front page feature on a slow debut of a drug designed to treat alzheimer's disease. the fda approved it early january for mild cases of dementia. but treatment for most patients is months away. experts say because there's limits insurance coverage and experts need time setting up the treatment the drug is administered by iv every two weeks. in georgia the

"atlanta-journal constitution" reported anti-semitic fliers were thrown into the driveways of several family homes in predominantly jewish neighborhoods. the flyers describes the text as satanic. and only those who received the flyers, the only jewish state lawmaker in georgia. and the journal star leads with the recent teacher shortage in illinois. a recent survey found over 30% of posted teacher staff positions either went unfilled or filled with someone less than qualified. that's more than 2700 positions. and these in line with the state's own data which shows the teacher shortage is at the highest level seen in the last five years. and the new star reports louisiana's congressional members are pushing for all federal workers to return to the

office. the legislation cleared the house last week. louisiana is only with congress against the bill. joe. >> yeah, let me -- i wanted to go back to that anti-semitism in georgia. you know, we had discussed whether the show should go to acknowledge the liberation of auschwitz. >> right. >> and you kept saying that you thought it was so critical that we do it, because of all of the anti-semitism, whether we're talking about charlottesville.

there are stories like this every day, i will tell you, as i was driving up from auschwitz back up to warsaw, i got breaking news of five people in a synagogue being gunned down. and killed. so, other news that day, the next day, breaking news, anti-semitism across the globe. and here, even the united states of america. it is a disease, and it's a disease that we have to remain aware of every day. and it's frightening as jonathan greenblatt said anytime he's on the show, anti-semitism is rising to new levels across this country, across europe, across the world. >> it's also an utter lack of regard and disrespect on history. and it's really great you went and sort of put a marker down on

what happened. still ahead on "morning joe" newly released audio from november of 2020 reveals how trump staffers continued to push election lies. even though they knew he had lost the race. plus, my conversation with pamela anderson, she's comparing they are narrative with a documentary and memoir. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. joe" we'll be right back. lieve allergy headache pain? and the congestion that causes it! flonase headache and allergy relief. psst! psst! all good! >> tech: need to get your windshield fixed? flonase headache and allergy relief. safelite makes it easy. >> tech vo: you can schedule in just a few clicks. and we'll come to you with a replacement you can trust. >> man: looks great. >> tech: that's service on your time. schedule now. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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♪♪ the associated press has released new audio recordings of a trump campaign staffer back in november of 2020, two days after election day. specifically, the audio is from the trump campaign manager in wisconsin, offering a behind-the-scenes look how the

campaign there knew they'd lost to democrats in the state. but continued to promote allegations of voter fraud anyway. >> here's the drill. comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about democrats trying to steal this election. we'll do whatever they need there for output and help with. >> the ap staff the man you heard in that audio clip, andrew iverson is now the midwest regional director for the republican national committee. he referred all questions about the audio to the rnc which declined to comment. so, joe, here we go again. i mean, up and down the line. >> well, up and down the line, but it's coming from the very top from donald trump. >> yeah. >> and john heilemann, if you listen to the entire clip, he begins telling everybody that's assembled, hey, listen, tip of

the hat to the democrats. they outorganized us, they got people out to vote, they beat us, fair and square. now, we're going to have to run around and screech about how democrats stole this election. standby to pull, quote, stunts. that's just part of the story. i think as paul harvey would say, if you want to know the rest of the story, this guy got a promotion! he went from running wisconsin to running the entire midwest region because he knew they lost. he saluted the democrats your outorganizing them, and then let's scream and yell and say we were robbed, this election was rigged and let's pull stunts. that's the republican party in 2020 and 2022 to get a promotion. >> i mean, look, that's -- i

mean, it was, certainly, what you did in 2020 and 2022, i think we all agree. the big question is whether that continues to be the case coming out of 2022, and whether sort of what seems to be the fading relevance of donald trump will also meet the faded relevancy of trumpism. i think that's the question facing our politics and the republican party. but, man, joe, you think about all of the people up and down the line at that moment when that tape was made, there was no potential cost, no potential real risk to kind of indulging donald trump's dangerous rhetoric on this front. we obviously learned to the contrary. i bet if you went into an awful lot of closed rooms in battleground states that joe biden won that he wasn't supposed to win, supposed to win, according to the trump people, you would find very similar tapes in a lot of places where people had looked to a lot of this data, just at people did

at the national level of the campaign. and looked and said, you know, we lost this election, but there was no upside for them professionally to speaking truth anywhere, let alone to power, within their party. they thought, you know, the think to do here is salute sharply the lies. and we get rewarded for that. and as this shows, they did. coming up, the chairman of the dnc, jaime harrison is standing by. how he aims to solve a simmering fight about democrats about their own presidential primaries. that conversation is just ahead on "morning joe."

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let's make it real simple. republicans try to cut social security. it's not going to get by the senate in my view. but i'll stop it. if they try to cut medicare, i'll top them. i've got a veto pen.

they try to pass the burden financial sales tax, i'll stop them. if they send me a national ban on the right to choose, i will stop them. >> president biden speaking friday at the democratic national committee's annual winter meeting in philadelphia. at this point, president biden faces no meaningful opposition to his leadership of the democratic party and a smooth path to renomination next year, even before he has officially declared his intention to seek it. as for the nominating process, the democratic national committee has adopted a new primary schedule. one that will dethrone iowa and new hampshire as the lead-off states in the democrats' presidential nominating process. under the new rules, south carolina will go first, then nevada and new hampshire, followed by georgia and michigan. however, the proposed calendar changes are not yet final, that

will need cooperation from republicans in the state to change the primary date. and officials from both sides of the aisle in new hampshire are vowing to fight the dnc schedule changes and still hold their primary first. party officials are giving both states until june 3rd to finalize their calendars. joining us now, chairman of the democratic national committee, jaime harrison. and jaime, i'll toss to john heilemann for the first question. john? >> mr. chairman, good morning, and happy monday. a big move by your -- by the democratic party. here's, it's been many years with these traditions. iowa goes first, followed immediately after by new hampshire. new hampshire alone, on the following tuesday. now, out the window. talk to us -- just walk us through what the calendar now looks like. and what the reasoning was behind -- that we have some general sense of it, but the reasoning that put these five --

this new five-part calendar in february -- it looks totally different, what the reasoning was that led you guys there? >> well, john, joe, mika, it's always great to be with you. and i need to say hello to the most avid "morning joe" watcher which is my mom patricia. but, listen, this challenger looks like the democratic party. and it reflects the diversity of america. when you look at it, we start off with three small states. we start with south carolina and has chosen the democratic nominee, every time, since 1992, with the exception of 2004, with john edwards. john kerry got second here in south carolina. we then moved three days later to two other small states, new hampshire which has traditionally been the second contest, iowa and then new hampshire. new hampshire retains that spot. and then we also add nevada which elevates latino voters. then we go to two larger states,

we go to georgia which is the home of the new south. and then we go to michigan which is you know, the heart of the heartland. where the middle class was born. so, i'm really, really excited about this calendar, because i think it does reflect the best of the democratic party and the best of america. >> chairman harrison, good morning, jonathan lemire. i know this is a decision that can be re-evaluated in four years. but new hampshire is pretty happy now. they say things have changed. yes, they're second, they're no launch the first primary. south carolina has jump them. we're hearing from very prominent democrats in state, forget the republicans, they're upset and won't play ball. what are you going to do? >> again, i note for a second time, new hampshire has always been the second presidential nominee contest. and it continues to hold that position on this calendar. but let's take a step back, for 50 years ago, i just turned 47

yesterday, longer than i was alive, for 50 years, iowa and new hampshire have been the one-two step as it relates to selecting the next nominee for the democratic party. we are just changing that. we are giving more people and more graces an opportunity to influence where we go as a party, and where we go as a nation. i think that's really important for us to continue. so, this is what we are going to do. we have told new hampshire, we'll continue to work with you. again, they're in the same spot. actually, probably, even a little better, instead of having a week between iowa and new hampshire. there will be three days between south carolina and new hampshire. so, they're still going to have tremendous influence over the process just as they've always had, but adding more diverse forces because our party reflects those diverse forces. we're willing to work with them and we'll continue to do just

that. >> and we need to give people historical perspective here. it isn't like this just happened, if you read op-eds on the far riding saying joe biden is doing this, to rig the election for next year, for '24. this has been a legitimate complaint among democrats for decades. you have two of the whitest states in america going one and two, usually by the end of those two contests, the narrative is flamed and nobody else can get through it. and i remember us commenting on this show, after biden got crushed in iowa, and biden got crushed in new hampshire, people were saying, he's out of the race. i remember commenting i wrote a "washington post" article, i set, wait a second, wait, you actually have a democratic candidate kicked out of the race, the democrats' most

important constituent even have a say it in. and we love them for different reasons pertaining to this show, we have so many friends there in iowa and new hampshire, but these two states do not reflect the diversity of the democratic party. and this has been the ongoing complaint for 20 years. >> joe, you hit the nail on the head. you know, president biden said when he visited south carolina in the last contest, by the time he got there, there were four contests. there were a number of candidates that had already dropped out. as he said, 99.9% of black voters had not had the chance to vote at that point. and that is just -- should not be, when african americans and at latino americans make up such an important component, the back bone of the democratic party. we need it to change up. the democratic party looked very

differently than it did ever since then. we have constantly evolved this is part of that evolution. and i'm proud of this calendar and i think it's going to only strengthen the democratic party long term. >> so, if a state doesn't abide buy the views, do you just not count their primary delegates? >> well, hopefully, we're not going to get down that road, joe. but we have passed mechanisms that give the chair some authorities. in order to enforce our account. if we have to go down that road, we will. but we're going to do everything that we to work with our state. again, new hampshire is still in. if anybody should be complaining, it would be iowa, right? but new hampshire is still in the same spot that they have

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♪♪ our next guest is taking back her life and her story on they are own terms. pamela anderson known as her role as playing life guard c.j. parker on the hit '90s show

"baywatch" is out with a tell-all, "love pamela, pamela a love story." in the book, pamela describes her journey and all of the challenges along the way as she skyrocketed from smalltown girl to hollywood icon activist and mother. and pamela anderson joins us now. my brothers are probably freaking out right now. >> we are huge, huge fans of "morning joe." my mom and dad watch it. >> i can't believe it. >> oh, yeah, i didn't even tell them i'm doing this, i want them to be surprised. >> that is so great, thanks mom, thanks, dad. so, pamela, you're so raw and real in telling your story. and i love that. i also love the fact that you talk to your sons, your grown

sons, about this. and they encouraged you to tell your story in your own words. what was that conversation with them like? and did they understand the extent to which you'd be telling your story? >> well, randy can talk me into anything, he just said, mom, it's time. you have to tell your story. i've heard this -- people talk about different parts of your life, but they're not talking about the whole person. just how i raised them and how close they are. they just felt the need for them to be seen. life happens, life isn't easy for anybody. i felt it was important to tell my story, and tell the chapters of my life, not just this chapter, but i really wanted to be balanced in my book and i just wanted complete disclosure, freedom. >> must have been an incredible experience to put your life in your own words, and for people who thought they knew you, or had their opinions of who they

thought you were. to really get a real understanding of your life in its totality. and there were some real challenges early in your life, traumas that, i think, might have been surprising to people reading about you. and even wrote about a babysitter was that incredibly abusive to you. and then the unbelievable mental turmoil you went through, when that babysitter died. can you tell us about that? >> well, that was confusing, too. i had a female -- you know, when i was 10 years old. and she always threatened me that she was going to do things to my brother. i used to think she always threatened me that she was going to do things to my brother. she told me not to tell anybody. one time she told me that i wasn't going to get any presents

for christmas or something like that. i ran after her and i stabbed her in the heart with a candy cane pen and said i hope you die. she ended up dying the next day or shortly after and i felt like i killed her with my magical mind as a kid. i didn't tell my parents for a long time. i felt like i was responsible for that too. i was very careful what i wished for from then on. i was very imaginative. i imagined myself sometimes at 5 years old. i can picture her from head to toe. i call her name out and i give her a big hug and she runs off and i tell her everything's going to be okay. if we can look at ourselves before this trauma happens to us and that innocence is still a part of who we are. when i was able to do broadway, i taped a picture of myself at 5

years old on my dressing room mirror and i said she's doing it, i'm just going to get out of the way. >> that's incredible. you share so much about your life in this. and you share a lot of the details and the pain of your marriage, losing your marriage, which you considered kind of the rock bottom of your life. how did you move through rock bottom? >> i went a little crazy. i went a little off the rails. i'm a big reader. i'm a lover of documentary films and just psychology and fairytales, mythology. i know i'm off track when i'm not reading or writing. i just felt like i let my kids down. my marriage, when it failed, i felt like we ruined the most important job in the world,

being a parent. i felt like we let them down. so i was depressed. i did the best i could. at my age now, i still don't know how much of an adult i was then. but we can look back. it felt like therapy. >> the honesty you're sharing, i sometimes feel like you're being hard on yourself, because you were trying your best. everyone's doing the best they can, pamela. >> yeah. >> you recently said you're not afraid of getting older, that you even can't wait to see yourself old. tell us about that mentality. you grew up in a career so focused on appearance and all that. what's your advice to women who can't get there? >> you've got to accept it. it's going to happen. no matter what, we're going to get old.

it's kind of an experiment. it's kind of funny. you have to just embrace it. i always said i'd recognize myself when i'm older, when i'm really old. i love older people and i have great friends who are older. when you look in the mirror and you see all that life on your face, you've earned it. >> i know you're a huge animal advocate. you dove head first into animal activism. that's an area you could really make a difference. so what's next for you on this front or any other front? any take-aways for women who feel stuck at this time in their life? >> i felt that way many times. i just always feel like, what, i was happy before. even when i look back at the documentary, i see such joy on my face with my kids.

remember that person. you can get sidetracked. there's a lot of negativity in the world. you deal with it every day. we can choose to be happy. i think we can do that as a community. it's kind of a rebel move just to be happy, sexy at any age pamela's memoir "love pamela" and a new netflix documentary "pamela, a love story" out now. pamela, thank you so much. please send our love to your family. pamela anderson. >> bye, mika. coming up, beyonce makes history at the grammy awards. aws

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it's just before the top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. we have a lot to get to including one of the most powerful donor networks in conservative politics proclaims it will wade into the republican presidential primaries for the very first time in a potentially devastating move against donald trump. one of the reporters behind that story will join us in just a moment. plus, we'll have the latest developments out of turkey, where a pair of massive earthquakes have struck, 2,000 have been reported killed so far and that number is expected to rise significantly. we'll have the latest from the war in ukraine, where there may be a major shakeup among leaders.

we start with the latest on the chinese spy balloon and the rising tensions with beijing over the biden administration's decision to shoot it down. a senior defense official tells nbc news that the pentagon has been analyzing the remnants of the balloon over the past few days after it was shot down off the coast of south carolina saturday. according to the defense department, the balloon first entered us air space january 28th by way of the aleutian islands. it briefly crossed into canada before reentering u.s. territory tuesday via idaho and floating across the midwest to south carolina. speaking after saturday's shootdown operation, president biden gave new insight into why the balloon wasn't brought down sooner. >> on wednesday, when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. i told them to shoot it down. >> on wednesday? >> on wednesday. >> they said let's wait until the safest place to do it.

>> the violation of international law led to the white house cancelling secretary of state antony blinken's planned visit to beijing last week, which was to have been the first by a cabinet member since the biden administration took office. despite multiple statements from the chinese government accusing the white house of overreacting to a so-called weather balloon that drifted off course, u.s. officials have doubled down on their position that the balloon intentionally crossed into north america to, quote, monitor sensitive military sites, and blinken cancelling his trip is quite a message, joe. >> it is quite a message. it's a message the chinese did not want. i know it will be hard for those trumpers that want to try just to attack america at every turn, talk about how weak we are.

but this is something that was a real setback for china, because the chinese desperate to get the united states reengaged with them, desperate to turn the page on a disastrous two, three, four years they've been ignoring. as david ignatius said earlier today, as other really smart analysts have said, the thing that actually did the most damage to the united states globally was not how people perceived our president, who actually followed the advice of generals and admirals inside the pentagon, but actually senators, some of them senior, making remarks posing with guns like they're going to shoot down a balloon. so the question is, jonathan

lemire, when does the united states go ahead and move forward with that meeting with china, when does blinken reset it given the fact that we need to continue putting pressure on china not only regarding trade and economic issues, but also russia, the war, them continuing to fund the russians in the execution of that war? >> there is no date rescheduled just yet, but officials i talk to indicate they anticipate this trip will go forward at some point. they want a cooling off period. they didn't want to have the secretary of state in beijing with the topic completely dominated by the balloon. they didn't think that will be very productive. they suggest it will happen a little bit down the road. it's in both sides interest to have this meeting. the chinese were going to give secretary of state an audience with president xi jinping.

heads of state don't normally meet with a representative of another government unless it is that government's head of state. the fact that xi is willing to do that now shows you how much they wanted this meeting. they're going to talk tough about the u.s.'s decision to shoot this thing down, but the biden administration simply had no choice and they wanted to wait until it was overseas. certainly the topic of balloons will be part of that meeting. there were three flown from china over the united states during the trump administration and even now there was one still spotted over latin america in recent days, the fate of it not known at this moment. >> wow. >> situational outrage. as a former cia agent told us on

the show earlier, there are about 30 things we need to worry about regarding chinese espionage in america. the balloon is probably down at like 20, 21, 22. there are a lot more things to be concerned about, buting fools of themselves over this past weekend, pointing guns up into the sky. this is not something that a united states senator could do, not something that a member of the united states house should do. they would have never done this until the last couple of years. trumpism has so badly infected the republican party now that it truly has become a party of jesters. instead of doing what republicans did back when i was there, republican senators would call the white house, call the pentagon. if you were on a committee, you

would call generals and say tell me what's happening. the generals would say shooting it down is probably not our best move and here's why. and they would explain to members of congress, who actually wanted the answers from people who run the united states military and understand the intel threat better than anybody else. they would talk. these members of congress would talk to generals and admirals and people running even their own committees, and they'd get answers instead of posing on twitter with useless gestures. that look hurts the united states a hell of a lot more than having a balloon floating across the united states after the pentagon has already scrambled signals so it can't get any information. then they take it down, get the

payload and figure out exactly what was in there. that becomes a much bigger win for the united states of america than china. a former career cia guy said it it's note worthy how utterly stupid many were acting on twitter. politicians posing with ar-15s pointed at the sky are embarrassing. do better. meanwhile, you have other republicans, once again, hating on america, talking about america in decline, when nobody across the world believes america is in decline. they understand the impact of having the 82nd airborne in poland. they understand the impact of having the 10th mountain division come in, these legendary american forces coming

into poland, working with nato allies, standing shoulder to shoulder to protect freedom in europe. by the way, to see the message to the chinese that going into taiwan is a fool's errand. they understand this. yet, they continue their empty gestures, bad for them, bad for the political party and a very bad look for this country. >> talk about scrambling signals, the republican party used to be the party of strength, the party that was pro usa, pro military. now they're the party of insurrectionists, violence, hating the fbi, hating the u.s. military, constantly looking for some way to be reactive instead of reflective on who we are. >> you have senior united states senators actually saying they wish the u.s. troops were more

like russian troops, that somehow u.s. troops aren't, quote, manly enough. you were there. you have a republican party that's followed the lead of donald trump, who hate the intelligence community. you asked the question on whether trump believes vladimir putin or the u.s. intelligence community, donald trump said vladimir putin, an ex kgb guy who considers the united states of america a sworn enemy. donald trump doubled down on that, and you have republicans doing the same thing, talking about defunding the fbi, trusting vladimir putin more than they trust the men and women who are professionals in the intel community. it really is a bizarre turn. now you have republicans constantly talking about declinism, declinism, declinism. the chinese know we're not

declining. they see what we're doing in the philippines, japan, australia and across the pacific. they see what we're doing in central europe and poland, with training in ukraine, understanding it's the united states and our allies making a difference. they don't think we're declining. so why do republicans think the united states is declining militarily? why do they always hate on our armed forces? >> it's reflexive support of donald trump, that he is still the dominant figure there. people in the republican party, including senators, are willing to debase themselves to gather his support and appeal to his fans. their assessment of the russian troops proven rather incorrect, as we have seen how much the russian forces have struggled in ukraine. and donald trump doubled down on his support of putin just last week, five years later almost, still supporting putin over u.s.

intelligence officials and doing so after putin conducted this brutal invasion of ukraine and no republicans criticized him then. they remained silent. they'd rather point their ar-15s to the sky. a pair of massive earthquakes devastated areas in both turkey and syria. the first toppled nearly 3,000 buildings and killed nearly 2,000 people as of early this morning. the second 7.5 magnitude quake struck less than 12 hours later and rescue efforts are under way right now as hundreds are still believed to be trapped under the rubble. let's bring in megan fitzgerald with the latest reporting out of our london bureau. what more do we know about those rescue efforts? >> mika, i can tell you it is an

all hands on deck effort. we are talking about complete and utter destruction and devastation in syria and turkey, where leaders of both countries are saying the death toll is closing in on 2,000 people dead with thousands of others injured. of course, we know, unfortunately, that death toll will continue to rise. you talk about a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, that was the first one. that is the biggest and worst quake this region has seen in more than 100 years. so when you look at what we see in turkey where buildings are reduced to rubble, people trapped underneath, the chaos that has ensued, people running for their lives and crying and screaming for loved ones trapped underneath, first responders telling these frantic people to

remain quiet so they can listen to the cries under the rubble to continue this search and recue effort. we heard from a spokesperson from the civil defense who was in tears as he talked about the efforts to save his people. we know the military has been activated, rushing to the northern part of the country to try and rescue people. we know that president erdogan has said some 45 countries around the world have reached out, offering assistance to bring in search and rescue crews, of course, including the united states. they've heard from germany and poland, even war torn ukraine offering assistance as the entire world watches as this humanitarian crisis unfolds. mika. >> thank you very much. we'll be watching that very closely. we turn now to politics. a major gop donor network

looking to break with its past tradition and support candidates in the 2024 republican primaries. the network created by billionaire brothers charles and david koch is looking to turn the page on the past several years in an apparent rebuke of former president trump. according to an internal memo circulated to donors, the network believes, quote, the republican party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core american principles, and the american people are rejecting them. the group says it's seen the writing on the wall and plans on fixing things by getting involved in elections and primaries earlier to find better candidates. quote, the loudest voice in each political party sets the tone for the entire election. in a presidential year, that's the presidential candidate. and to write a new chapter for our country, we need to turn the page on the past. so the best thing for the country would be to have a

president in 2025 who represents a new chapter. the network is one of the most influential in republican politics, having spent roughly $500 million in election races and conservative causes in 2020 alone. joining us now, the reporter for the "new york times" ken vogel investigated the confluence of money, politics and influence and was part of the reporting team that broke this story. joe, this is a big deal in terms of donald trump. it's a first for the koch network to get involved early, and they are making a point here. >> big deal, really big deal, as joe biden said. ken, fascinating story here. the kochs very interesting,

never really cared for donald trump, focused on a lot of other issues during the trump presidency, like criminal justice reform, as you know. but talk about the process they went through to get to this point where they said enough. it reminds me a lot of 2014. enough, we're not going over the cliff with whacked out primary candidates anymore. >> yeah. you raise a good analogy there to 2014. in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, the kochs got a lot of pressure from both operatives in their network and donors to consider wading into the republican primary that year against trump, who they saw as anathema to their own libertarian infused political philosophy and also the republican party's political philosophy. they had a lot of debate over

whether they should support marco rubio or ted cruz. they had a lot of issues with trump during his presidency. charles koch compared the choice even before his presidency between hillary clinton and donald trump to choosing between a heart attack and cancer. you know, they have this sort of background where they don't like trump. they got some of what they wanted from him certainly during his presidency including tax reform and the nomination of conservative supreme court judges, but a lot of the ideas they had about what the republican party should be focused on were essentially cast by the wayside during the trump administration. so they see this as a chance to move on. they are concerned that if the republican party nominates donald trump again that they'll lose to joe biden or whomever, but likely joe biden.

they want to avoid that, because they also are opposed to the biden administration and have lobbied against several of the biden administration's key policy victories. >> you also pointed out in the story and i think it's important for people to understand that it's not easy to pigeonhole the koch donor network, especially charles koch. it's not a traditional hard right republican position. again, champion of criminal justice reform. he's very, by our standards that we use in political discourse, progressive when it comes to immigration. he loathes the tariffs donald trump put out there. there are a lot of crosscurrents going on in charles koch's political philosophy. he liked the tax cuts, but he hated trump's position on immigration and tariffs and

quite a few things. >> yeah. they're very traditionally libertarian. charles koch is against interventionism and you have to believe would be supportive of joe biden's decision to withdraw from afghanistan. a lot of this is about this upcoming presidential campaign, but a lot of it is about the direction of the republican party going forward. charles koch is getting up there in age. you have to believe after spear heading this donor new york that has spent probably close to $2 billion overall since it first came on the scene during the george w. bush administration, trying to shape the direction of the republican party and american politics and seeing that their efforts in the form of trump have been repurepudiat.

>> this would certainly be a blow to donald trump. if the koch brothers don't back donald trump, is there a sense who they do want to support? do they have a favorite candidate or two? >> you can foresee a very deliberative process. they try to apply business management principles to their political decision making. i think we're a long ways away from them ultimately deciding, but there are a couple candidates who do jump out as potentially having an advantage, number one being ron desantis, because that seems to be where a lot of big donor energy is and polls show he is potentially the most viable challenger to trump. also mike pence, former vice president, had a lot of connections in koch world, including some operatives and donors who remain important there. so we could potentially see

those two being among the folks who would be near the top of the list that the kochs would be evaluating. >> ken vogel of the "new york times," thank you very much for your reporting this morning. dell technologies says it is planning a massive round of layoffs according to bloomberg. the tech giant will cut about 5% of its global workforce as the company struggles with a slump in sales. the outlook has been shaken by drop in demand due to inflation and raising interest rates. meanwhile, investors are keeping a close eye on fed chair jerome powell and his speech tomorrow. this comes after the fed raised interest rates by a quarter of a point last week. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. talk about these layoffs. is this not the end when it

comes to news like this? >> i don't know if it's the end or not. i think what it's demonstrative of is how much activity was pulled forward. we were all buying pcs and computers during the pandemic. to the degree we're past that pandemic, you're seeing sales fall off. companies like dell are cutting back. we're seeing cutbacks across the board. you juxtapose all of the headlines we talk about every morning about some new company cutting back staff, laying people off, and the fact that the unemployment number, which we just got on friday, is at its lowest point since 1969. having said that, that speech is going to come right after jay powell speaks tomorrow afternoon. i would love to know whether president biden gets a copy of

jay powell's speech before it or if he has to change any of it as the day goes on in as far as chairman powell coming out and we really will see how hawkish he is about the economy. he's said over and over again he thinks inflation is still out of control. >> the ups and downs just last week, we had a smaller than expected interest rate hike. i think the next day it was british central bank saying that perhaps they'd reached peak inflation, everything looking good. then those job numbers came out and this economy is still hot. how is the street looking at everything this week? >> at the moment, the street believes that jay powell is going to le off.

meaning, jay powell is not going to keep his foot on the neck of the economy. the big question goes to what happens tomorrow and maybe impacts the way people think about president biden's speech tuesday night is, does jay powell come out and say you know what, the inflation story is worse and i'm going to keep at it, which would mean that the stock market would likely fall on that kind of news, or does he say things are getting better and that he is looking forward to a much softer landing. if that's the case, the market will go up and make it a lot easier for president biden to claim credit for what's happening. not just to claim credit, but to suggest and predict longer term that things are going to get a lot better. >> which way is he going to go, best guess? >> goodness, my sense of it is jay powell is so nervous, continues to be nervous about a

hot economy, looks at the employment picture and thinks that's representative of a hot economy, in part because the market thus far does not seem to be believing what he has been saying thus far. >> cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, thank you very much for being on this morning. coming up on "morning joe," the latest from the war in ukraine, where there may be a major shakeup among military leaders there as they prepare for a possible russian offensive. also ahead, six months ago, author salmon rushdie was brutally attacked on stage. he spent six weeks in the hospital and lost vision in one eye. now the award winning novelist is speaking out for the first time. speaking out for the firs time

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a shakeup is expected at the top of ukraine's military establishment. the head of president zelenskyy's party in parliament saying yesterday the country's defense minister is set to be replaced by a senior general, marking what would be the biggest change to ukraine's government since the start of russia's invasion nearly one year ago. joining us from kyiv is raf sanchez. >> reporter: this is a rare example of tensions inside president zelenskyy's wartime government spilling out into the open. late last night we got this bombshell announcement from the head of zelenskyy's party in parliament, kind of the equivalent of chuck schumer, saying ukraine's defense minister, the man who has been managing the war effort is out and is going to be replaced by the head of military intelligence. that would be a very big deal. a couple of hours later, the defense minister said he hasn't

heard anything about that and he's not going anywhere unless president zelenskyy tells him to go. zelenskyy has not said anything in public one way or another as these two very senior officials in his government kind of duke it out in public. this may feel like kyiv's equivalent to beltway politics, but the reason it matters is any day now vladimir putin is expected to launch that renewed russian offensive in the east or the south of this country. this is not the moment you want confusion at the top of the defense ministry. we were at a preference yesterday with the current maybe outgoing defense minister. i asked him how the symbolism of the one-year anniversary of this war on february 24th is weighing on vladimir putin. take a listen. >> do you believe vladimir putin has given his generals orders to capture certain areas to complete certain objectives by

february 24th? what are those objectives? >> the kremlin wants to reach strategic goal at minimum to control administrative borders of luhansk and donetsk district. it's their crazy dream. and, second, to control corridor on the south to make it wider. >> reporter: you heard the defense minister saying putin has a crazy dream that by february 24th he will have seized full control of the provinces of donetsk and luhansk and he will have expanded control in the area down near crimea. according to the ukrainian defense minister, he is pressuring his generals to try to make those symbolic gains by that date. a couple of words about the man who may be taking over the

defense ministry, he's head of intelligence, he's a very powerful figure. he's largely been behind the scenes. he is credited here in kyiv as one of not many people at the top of the ukrainian government who accurately predicted the russian invasion on february 24th with the help of intelligence suppliedia and the u.s. government. >> joining us now we have editor of the new yorker, pulitzer prize winning author david remnick. we want to talk about your profile on salmon rushdie, which is his first and only interview after the attack that took his life. we'll talk about that in a moment. first, an update on the changes happening right now in ukraine, especially at the very top. your take on that? >> this is not an opportune time for ukraine.

it really is facing an offensive from the russians. look, ukraine has done an astonishing job with the help of the west of staving off this murderous invasion. the fact is that russia, because of its scale and its size, has the resources and the crazy determination to keep going and ruin ukraine. although the ukrainian effort so far has been heroic, the damage is just horrendous and i think we're going to see many more months of this, because there seems to be no negotiation in sight. zelenskyy has to get rid of any sign of corruption if he's going to continue to get the kind of help he's gotten from the west. he cannot afford to display massive corruption if he's going to get that kind of assistance

from the west. it's a necessary thing. >> while the eu has publicly stated that they want ukraine to move toward membership status, if you talk to leaders privately, there's deep skepticism they'll be able to reach the targets they need to reach. how widespread is it in ukraine? and how aggressive does zelenskyy need to get so he can achieve his ultimate goal post war of ukraine becoming a member of the eu? >> remember, that's what this struggle is all about, ukraine's desire to become part of the west and be out from under the yoke of russia. russia doesn't want that to happen. ukraine, with all the problems it's got, with all the murderous invasion going on with the many, many, many losses that they've

suffered, in order to get in the eu, they're going to have to prove in wartime that it is relatively free from the infection of corruption, which has been part of the ukrainian scene and the scene in russia and many other places for a very long time. this is a very tricky thing for zelenskyy. >> made even more tricky by the fact of happening during wartime. you look at the united states during wartime, even during world war ii, and there were concerns about corruption. you look at the truman commission and the corruption that it was trying to get to the bottom of even during the war. again, this is going to be a great challenge for ukraine, but they have no other choice. >> just the other day, zelenskyy, who had backing from some oligarchs in his own

election campaign, allowed the prosecution of one of those oligarchs. that's a difficult thing to pull off. zelenskyy yet again, i think, is showing the west, showing the eu, showing the united states something about courage and leadership, courage during wartime. he's a remarkable figure. >> i want to turn to your exclusive interview in the new yorker with salmon rushdie, who is still recovering after a brutal assassination attempt at an event in new york. he has been living under a kill order from the iranian government for decades over his book "the satanic verses." i'm curious. this is the only interview he plans to do. tell us about that conversation? >> salmon rushdie has been living under a fatwah since

1989. rushdie moved to the west after living a fugitive existence, he moved to new york city and almost defiantly lived a free life unguarded for 20 years. he told me in our interviews the threat had receded dramatically. unfortunately a young guy in his early 20s who spent some time in lebanon, who had become more religious, more political, rushed the stage and stabbed rushdie 15 times in front of thousands of people. rushdie barely survived this. he had just finished a novel "victory city" which has just come out this week. he would have liked to have a

book tour, but he knows this is impossible for a variety of reasons, including security. he's been recovering from these injuries. he lost his eye, the eyesight in his right eye. it's very difficult for him to type. it cut the nerve in his hand, lacerated his liver. >> he moved to the u.s. in 2000, lived there without security. i remember in 2012, the then iranian leader was going around talking to reporters. i know mika and i went to a meeting with a small group of reporters, you as well. you asked him about a bounty.

>> he had just given a small press conference where he made all kinds of threats. i asked him, is there still a bounty on rushdie's head? with a smile of malice, just a disgusting expression, he said, is he still in the united states? he should take care. he was threatening a novelist as a leader of a nation. rushdie deserves enormous credit for his bravery and his refusal to allow the fatwa to overwhelm his novels. he's been trying to live independently of the sword of damocles that's been over his head since 1989. >> give us a sense as to

rushdie's recovery. does he hope to continue to write? does he believe he still can in the wake of this attack? >> i think, quite frankly, he'd rather talk about literature than the attack. he was very frank with me. he said he suffers from ptsd, nightmares, all kinds of physical difficulties, but he's doing reason. ably well. he's doing much better. i think he's now struggling with trying to write again. although he resents having to do so, i think in the end he will write some kind of memoir about this attack. he mode a memoir called joseph anton, which was about his own life and the fatwa, but he clearly needs to write some kind of sequel. he's at his desk as we speak

right now. >> you can hear david's wide ranging conversation with salmon rushdie on the new yorker radio hour, which is available now whenever you listen to podcasts, or on your local npr station. still ahead, the latest incident of planes narrowly averting each other on an airport runway. we'll tell you how the pilots managed to prevent a disaster. and the latest installment of brand up/brand down. of brand up/brand down with the capability of a 2-inch lift. ♪♪ the versatility of the available multi-flex tailgate. ♪♪ and the connection of a 13.4” diagonal touchscreen.

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close call early saturday when a fedex cargo plane was making its approach in heavy fog. >> according to the faa the cargo plane was cleared to land on the same runway as a depart ing southwest airlines flight. you can hear air traffic control tell southwest to abort. >> southwest abort. fedex is on the go. >> that response, the faa says, is the fedex pilot, cutting his landing short, pulling the plane into a climb and putting critical distance between both planes. >> the airplanes got closer than

they should have. they're still working through exactly how close. there was a loss of separation, clearly. >> that loss of separation, according to john cox, is something pilots are trained to watch out for. >> had the fedex crew not initiated a go around, these airplanes would have been potentially very close or even possibly collided. >> in new york just weeks ago, a similar situation at jfk airport after an american airlines flight ended up on the wrong runway and almost hit a delta flight about to take off. and at newark airport on friday, another incident, but this one much less series as a boeing 787 clipped wings with a united flight as it left the gate, snapping off a small piece of the wing. >> oh my gosh. coming up on "morning joe,"

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and the grammy goes to beyonce! >> beyonce making history last night with her record-breaking 32nd grammy win. she now holds the most grammy awards of any artist all-time.

that's incredible, and that brings us to brand-up, brand-down with donny deutsch. starting with beyonce, done any. >> bae, what can you stay, greatest superstar of our time. interesting thing about our tour, they've got the early kind of people signing up for lottery. 800% demand versus supply. for every ticket they sell, there would be eight more to sell. the demand is incredible. they don't want another snafu like they had with taylor swift. we'll see how ticketmaster and all play it out. >> tom brady has had an up-and-down season. brand up or brand down? >> he did a final retirement, didn't do a press conference. the real brand up, his movie opened, "brady for 80," lilly tomlin, sally field,.

the movie did $12.5 million at the box office. the macro news is it got older people, older people like us, people over the age of 12 who go to movies, post pandemic actually showing up at the movies. kind of a breakthrough movie. >> tom brady is always brand up in my book, of course. you're going to deliver us a rare update on something featured previously on this segment. the power slap. >> we need a new graphic that says brand up, brand down update. >> dana white has a new lead, grotesque, just two burly guys sitting across from a partition and slap each other in the face to see who falls down first. disaster, 280,000 total viewers which for a sports event is like nothing. it's been called organized brain damage. we have enough violence in the world. wet don't need a stupid force

like this. >> my god. this is just horrible. >> i think fox or espn signed up for it. there you go. >> disgusting. okay. that's where we are. moving to betting on the weather. >> continuing on to the end of civilization as we know it. basically in canada -- you can't do this legally in the states. you can pick a date in the future and say is it going to rain, is it going to snow, is it going to be above 40 degrees? it's a little bit of a sad story. it shows our incredible propensity to bet for anything. i think it's a little bit of a sorry state. we're going to put this as not as drastic a brand down as power slap, but still brand down. >> plant-based meats. beyond burger, impossible meats or whatever. it tastes like hamburger, much healthier. you say brand down. why? >> this came on -- impossible

burger and beyond meats came on huge gangbusters. all of a sudden the spigots have turned off. beyond meats, sales down 22% in the last quarter. if you would have asked me last year, i say this would have escalated. a real break stop in both of these companies having tremendous problems. interesting. >> another thing i don't understand. your next topic. psychodelic churches. i don't know. the churches i grew up in were against psych del lick drugs, psych del lick music, anything. >> basically churches in new mexico and oregon, popping up around the country are serving an incredible psych del lick and it's illegal in the united states. because they're non-profits, it

supposedly cures ptsd and other things. you go to church and get a little trip at church. >> okay. i don't want to go there. cracker barrel, a place i do want to go, a place where i always want to go. cracker barrel. >> huge brand up. >> this is a big no. >> why no? >> mika, i think the wroe manic in you will say yes. if you're a couple and film yourself getting engaged there, you can get free cracker barrel for a year. i want to repeat this. free cracker barrel for a year. five winning engaged couples. you can't go and renew your vows, joe and mika, otherwise i know you'd be running right to cracker barrel. >> gene sequencing has been a $200 million investment to bring back the do do bird, the 17th century extinct. doing gene sequencing and

synthetic biology. they say there's a real chance, i don't know why, they're going to bring back the dodo bierd. >> thank you for not knowing why. i want to know why. >> i just report the news. that's it. >> donny deutsch, goodbye. thank you. joe, that does it for us this morning. we're done. we'll see you tomorrow. >> are we done? i have a lot more to say. a couple more hours. come on, man. >> i'm ending it. that does it for us this morning. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage in one minute. lart pic coverage in one minute first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. even walking was tough. i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. cosentyx can help you move, look, and feel better... by treating the multiple symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting...get checked for tuberculosis. joe, that does it for us jose diaz-balart picks up the joe, that does it for us jose diaz-balart picks up the

and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms... or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms... develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. watch me. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. good morning. i'm jose diaz-balart. breaking overnight, a desperate search for survivors after a devastating